Post-meeting release 10/22

Commissioners formalize funding for businesses, non-profits and individuals
Board also hears update from Seneca County Board of Elections

[Tiffin, OH Oct. 22, 2020] – The Seneca County Board of Commissioners signed agreements Thursday with several community organizations to help disburse $1 million of CARES Act funding to assist those who have been negatively impacted by COVID-19.
The board signed agreements with Tiffin-Seneca Economic Partnership ($300,000), Fostoria Economic Development Corp. ($200,000) and Great Lakes Community Action Partnership ($250,000) to administer several programs aimed at giving assistance to businesses, non-profit organizations and residents in need in the community. Commissioners’ Office staff is also continuing to work on an agreement with Tiffin-Seneca United Way ($250,000) to lead similar programs.
Some examples of how these programs could help the community are as follows:
• The Seneca CARES Small Business Relief Program provides advance grants to eligible businesses with between 2 and 30 employees hurt by the coronavirus for up to $6,000 of eligible expenses.
• A similar program will also be offered to Fostoria-area businesses.
• Great Lakes Community Action Partnership will offer several programs, including rent/mortgage assistance, utility assistance and food assistance.
Commissioner Mike Kerschner said the board made it a priority to help as many people as possible through the CARES Act money, which was provided by the federal government and disbursed to county governments by the state legislature.
“We felt it was necessary to distribute funding to those who are specifically affected right now. We are thinking of the waiters and waitresses, theater employees and people who have lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19,” he said. “Instead of giving it to one person, organization or company, we need to make sure we positively affect as many people as possible.”
More details on how to participate in these programs will be released on Friday and throughout the coming weeks.
Overall, the county has received about $3.3 million through the CARES Act program. About $1.1 million has been used so far for county projects to help better equip county offices to deal with the ongoing health crisis.
In other business, Seneca County Board of Elections Deputy Director Lori Ritzler submitted a written report updating the commissioners on how the election is going so far.
She states in the report that the office is very busy processing more than 200 voters daily while also training poll workers, packing and preparing for Election Day and keeping up with auditing and other responsibilities.
“We are proud to say that ballots are being mailed out the same day we receive an application, this includes the first round on October 6th,” Ritzler said.
The board of elections team has added a full-time and two part-time seasonal employees to help with the increase in responsibilities and duties.
“Our best investment for this election has been the letter opener/date-time stamper. It has by far saved us 3-4 hours a day! It was worth the cost,” Ritzler said.
The election office has received more than 10,000 absentee ballots, including 2,476 people who voted early and in-person. Early, in-person voting continues up until Nov. 2, visit https://www.boe.ohio.gov/seneca/ for more details.

During new business, the commissioners approved:
* A $10,000 supplemental appropriation to the Children Services Fund.
* A $1,500 supplemental appropriation to the Delinquent Care and Custody Fund for equipment.
* The 2020 schedule for expenditures of federal awards contract between Julian & Grube, Inc. and Seneca County on behalf of the Seneca County Auditor’s Office.
* Setting Dec. 3 at 9:30 a.m. as the date and time for public viewing and public hearing for the potential vacation of two alleys located in Loudon Township. The alley locations are: Alley One – Being part of an alley in Block 2 (Plat Volume 2, Page 10) located in the Southwest Quarter of Section 10, Loudon Township, T-2-N, R-13-E, Seneca County, Ohio
Alley Two – Being part of an alley in Block 3 (Plat Volume 2, Page 10) Located in the Southwest Quarter of Section 10, Loudon Township, T-2-N, R-13-E, Seneca County, Ohio