PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Portsmouth City Council voted 6-0 to defeat funding for design and engineering work on the Valley Street Bridge, reversing course after the city manager said the Ohio Department of Transportation warned that day against moving forward under the project’s current funding option.
The ordinance would have appropriated $108,471 from the general fund to cover design, engineering and right-of-way acquisition for bridge improvements. Council had advanced the same appropriation on a 5-1 vote in July, but it failed on its third and final reading Aug. 10 with no council member voting in favor.
Council member Dennis Packard asked what would happen if the city moved forward with the design work and later determined a full bridge replacement wasn’t feasible, questioning whether Portsmouth would be stuck covering the entire $108,000 itself under an 80/20 cost split and suggesting the item be tabled for a town hall meeting. City Manager Sam Sutherland said he had learned from ODOT just hours earlier that unless the bridge is torn down, the city should hold off on further work until it applies for another round of funding. Proceeding with right-of-way acquisition and related steps under the current option would push the project past the 2028 budget year the existing funding covers, Sutherland said, leaving the city responsible for the full cost if that deadline passed. Mayor Charlotte Gordon asked how often the bridge is inspected; Sutherland said assessments are done yearly.
Council separately voted 6-0 to approve an emergency ordinance awarding an additional $344,110.80 in riverfront grant funding to Allard Excavation LLC, the contractor already handling work on the city’s riverfront project. Sutherland said the money, drawn from a third grant tied to bike paths, roadways and paving on the river side of the floodwall, must be spent by April 2027, and that keeping Allard on the job avoids a new bidding process that could delay the work past the deadline. Council members Andy Cole and Chris Neff initially voted against waiving the standard three-reading process for the measure, saying the legislation didn’t clearly spell out the reasoning, before the ordinance passed on final vote.
In other business, council passed an ordinance amending the city’s sewer code to add a prohibited-discharges section, approved a $14,000 emergency appropriation for police department uniforms tied to recent promotions, and gave first-reading approval to a $100,000 appropriation for rubberized playground flooring at Mound Park. Council tabled, until Sept. 14, a proposed salary ordinance change for municipal court staff after the solicitor said the county auditor’s office still needed to provide language covering court employees.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the City of Portsmouth.
