By Barbara S. Miller

Staff writer

bmiller@observer-reporter.com

If Bill Beck were a gambling man, he said he'd head for the many attractions at West Virginia casinos before he'd play the slot machines at The Meadows Racetrack and Casino.

But without setting foot in any casino, Deemston Borough Council President Beck and his 800 constituents walked away big winners from Washington County's announcement of recommendations for use of the first round of slots revenue known as the local share account.

Deemston will receive $100,000, or 87 percent of the $115,230 it requested, to help renovate its borough building, a former schoolhouse in what's now the Bethlehem-Center School District in southeastern Washington County.

"I didn't think we had a snowball's chance in hell," Beck said before thanking the Washington County commissioners at their meeting Wednesday.

Twenty-six of the 85 municipalities and agencies requesting a share of the slots revenue from The Meadows could receive a total of $8,059,140 under a plan approved by the commissioners.

The state Department of Community and Economic Development will have the final say, announcing recipients in June.

If the pot of money grows, the commissioners could decide either to add a few projects to the list or increase the money made available to the 26 already approved. Commissioner Diana Irey said she's hoping for money for the Monongahela Aquatorium, a series of hillside bleachers facing the river.

Those who submitted $80 million worth of projects not funded were told not to give up hope.

"This money's going to be around for a long time for the foreseeable future," said Jeff Kotula, who chaired the local share committee of the Washington County Economic Development Roundtable. He encouraged municipalities and agencies who applied but didn't make the list, or who didn't apply this year, to apply again.

In the 1990s, the county commissioners set up the economic development roundtable, and members who specialize in job growth heard three days' worth of public presentations, then evaluated them.

Six members of the nine-member panel proposed projects related to their agencies, and seven of the projects were recommended for funding, including the three largest grants: $1.3 million for Southpointe II infrastructure, and $1.2 million each for the Starpointe and Alta Vista business parks.

Asked how committee members handled evaluation of their own projects during closed sessions, Kotula said, "We actually had our committee members leave the room as we discussed their projects. We provided a lot of scrutiny on those projects and, as you can see, we only funded 70 percent of them.

"Committee members submitted $19 million worth of requests, and we only chose to fund $5 million worth of those requests, so that's about 27 percent of what they asked for."

The Washington County Redevelopment Authority submitted multiple projects, some on behalf of municipalities, and the committee chose one of each type, the Canton 2010 revitalization of the Jessop Place interchange at Interstate 70 and the Skypointe business park at Washington County Airport.

Chartiers Township Supervisor Harlan Shober, whose township received $40,000 for a sewage interceptor project (the request was $2.8 million), and state Rep. Jesse White, appointee of the Washington County legislative delegation handling the local share, are gathering information on possible changes in the selection process that they plan to present to the county commissioners.

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