Commissioners try to improve communication

The Lorain County commissioners deserve some credit for recognizing a problem and trying to address it. Unfortunately, the problem is that they have lost the trust of a large swath of the county, especially in the rural areas. There also have been complaints about a lack of communication between the commissioners and local officials. Commissioner Marty Gallagher acknowledged as much Thursday during a meeting with the Lorain County Township Association in which he discussed the commissioners' efforts to get an "urban county" designation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "We should have called, and you guys should make sure you're part of it," Gallagher said. "We're not here to fight with you. We're here to help you." He also said that the commissioners had created a system to have county representatives work with different political jurisdictions. He also urged township officials to get in touch with the commissioners directly. Those steps should help, but the question is whether they'll be enough to reestablish the trust that township and other local officials claim has been lost. As we've previously written, that loss of trust has a lot to do with the so-called "mega site" that the commissioners support building at and around the Lorain County Regional Airport in New Russia Township and a sewer project that would spur development in rural parts of the county. Whether they intended to or not, the commissioners have left the impression that those two projects are all but certain to happen regardless of residents' concerns, including whether the projects would ruin the rural character of the townships. It therefore shouldn't have come as a shock that rural residents, township trustees and village officials were suspicious about the "urban county" designation. It would allow the county to apply for Community Development Block Grant funding directly to HUD instead of going through the state of Ohio, as is the case now. According to the commissioners, that could mean millions of dollars more to distribute throughout the county. (The exception is that Elyria and Lorain, which HUD designates as metropolitan areas, would continue to administer their own CDBG programs.) The commissioners insisted that the urban designation wouldn't impact local control, leaving development and zoning decisions in the hands of township, village and suburban city officials. But few people believed those assurances, and community after community opted out of the urban designation, leaving the county unlikely to get it. The commissioners are attempting something of an 11th hour goodwill push that they hope will persuade communities to reconsider. Last week, the commissioners invited township and village officials to a meeting that Monday, but then canceled it, opting instead to dispatch Gallagher to the Lorain County Township Association meeting. In what was perhaps a sign of how badly communication has broken down, a handful of local officials showed up for the meeting Monday because they didn't know it had been canceled. They were able to talk to county officials, but that was more by chance than plan. Better planning and communication could have helped the county avoid a lot of these problems in the first place. As the commissioners have acknowledged, the word urban appears to have been the major sticking point in their pursuit of the new HUD designation. Although the commissioners insisted they had done a lot to make sure township and village officials knew what the designation would do, it wasn't enough. Additional CDBG money for the county and the various programs it funds, such as Meals on Wheels, would be good, but folks feared that it would give the commissioners too much sway over local decision making. Again, according to the commissioners, that wasn't the case, but they couldn't get enough of the county's smaller communities to accept their word for it. They're now scrambling to persuade leaders of those communities that have opted out of the designation to change their minds by Aug. 10, a new deadline that might still allow the county to get the urban county designation and the additional money. If the commissioners are going to succeed, it will take more than Gallagher's appearance last week at the Township Association meeting. The commissioners or their high-ranking representatives should attend meetings in every community that opted out and answer every question put to them by elected officials and the public. They should come prepared with assurances about what exactly the designation would and wouldn't do. They should have the paperwork to back up their words. This will likely lead to uncomfortable conversations, including about the mega site and sewer projects. They should answer every question put to them as completely as they can. If the commissioners are going to have any chance of winning converts for the urban designation, they're going to have to address concerns head-on.