Given the choice between keeping jobs in Elyria and promoting future development at the county airport, the Lorain County Commissioners kept the jobs.

The commissioners pulled back their application for state money to improve the county airport yesterday so Elyria can apply for a grant to upgrade an industrial site to benefit A-D Technologies, formerly known as Arnco Corp.

Up to 150 jobs will stay in Elyria if the city’s grant application for $580,000 is approved by the Ohio Department of Development. The grant is designed to fund improvements to allow A-D Technologies to move from three buildings that total 150,000 square feet at 800 Garden St. into one 210,000-square-foot building that belonged to the former Progressive Processing Co. next door.

Up to 30 more employees could be hired once the project is completed, according to Jeff Naymik, marketing communications manager for A-D Technologies, which makes water and sewer pipes and underground conduits for telephone, cable TV and electrical power lines.

Naymik said his company is very excited about the project.

“The next step is to get approvals,” he said. “But we’re glad everyone pulled together.”

Arnco Corp. merged with Dura-Line Corp in 2007 to form A-D Technologies, based in Knoxville, Tenn., Naymik said.

“If we had not gotten this grant, we would have had to make a decision (whether to leave Elyria) based on capacity,” he said, noting the company has five plants across the United States.

Don Brackenhoff, Elyria economic development director, supervised the grant application. It includes about $400,000 to demolish 280,000 square feet of wooden structures and about $180,000 to upgrade a CSX rail spur. The city should learn by June 1 whether the state approved the grant application, Brackenhoff said.

Ohio counties are each allowed to apply for one grant up to $750,000 each year from the industrial site improvement fund of the Ohio Department of Development.

The commissioners had decided at their March 26 meeting to apply for money to extend sewers, utilities and a road to make the Lorain County Airport more viable as a future industrial park, according to Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo.

Elyria’s grant application was due to the commissioners’ office by noon March 20 for consideration at their March 26 meeting, Brackenhoff said.

“I called and was told it would be OK to turn it in a few hours late,” he said. Brackenhoff turned the proposal in at 2 p.m. March 20, but the commissioners never got it for their meeting, he said

Yesterday, Elyria Mayor William Grace spoke to the commissioners about the city’s proposal, apologizing for the communication breakdown.

Lorain County Commissioner Lori Kokoski said she hopes the county can submit its airport proposal next year.

“As Mayor Grace said, if there had been more communication before last Thursday, we could have saved a lot of work on the airport grant,” she said.

In other action, the commissioners prevented Lorain County Sheriff Phil Stammitti from having to lay off a deputy to cover an unexpected $60,000 shortfall in worker’s compensation expenses.

Stammitti said he was given $73,000 at the start of the year for worker’s compensation expenses, but the actual cost was about $133,000.

Lorain County Administrator Jim Cordes said the $60,000 will come from future appropriations.

“It’s push-pull these days,” he said. “If you push here, you have to be pulled somewhere else.”

But a temporary county-wide sales tax increase of 0.5 percent, which takes effect today, is hoped to raise about $15 million for the criminal justice system, Cordes said. The increase will bring Lorain County’s sales tax to 6.75 percent, and voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to keep the tax.

Source: The Morning Journal

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