MOUNDSVILLE -- Marshall County commissioners had spent their year working on long-term improvements to the county, which should bear fruit in the coming years, according to the commission's president.
John Gruzinskas, who serves as president of the Marshall County Commission, reflected on what they had been able to set into motion over the course of 2021, which covered a wide range of infrastructure and public health improvements.
Coming in ahead of the 2022 primary election, Gruzinskas said the county was successful in securing new, state-of-the-art voting machines for the county's offices and polling locations. The machines arrived in the first half of the year, coming at a price tag of roughly a million dollars, Gruzinskas said, but provide security and eliminate potential for human error for the county's voters.
"The upgrades that these machines have, it just modernizes what we're doing," Gruzinskas said. "It eliminates a lot of human error. It's, for lack of a better term, tamper-proof. There's no way these can be messed with in any way, they're really state-of-the-art machines."
Additionally, the county's emergency medical service was expanded in Moundsville, utilizing part of the building on First Street utilized by the Moundsville Volunteer Fire Department. Marshall County EMS first set up shop near Cameron in 2017 to combat long response times, and expanded into Moundsville this year. With the expansion came the purchase of new trucks and equipment -- Gruzinskas estimated around $500,000 worth -- as well as approximately 30 employees county-wide.
"It seems that we just need to keep adding more staff to maintain the level of coverage that we want. We want to make sure when people call, people come," he said. "We initially started with the station out in Cameron. ... We added a couple more trucks and more staff, and we're currently renting space from the Moundsville volunteers so we have a station here as well, operated by the county.
"It's just something that, with our aging population, we need to do," he added.
Looking to the year ahead, Gruzinskas said the county is looking to make upgrades to the county courthouse, with improvements such as making the front entrance more accessible for people with special needs, and installing a system in the concrete to prevent snow and ice from posing a hazard.
Additional electric work at the courthouse is also on the table, as Gruzinskas recalled electric problems plaguing the structure for years, a problem which has only gotten worse as more parts of the county's operation have become electronic.
"It's something sorely needed. I knew when I was sheriff down there, if I turned the coffee pot on, it'd blow a breaker somewhere else," he joked. "With the offices (needing to keep) adding electronics, which we're required to have for the government toa actually function, it's a damn shame when you have to turn something off in order to turn something else on."
Charleston-based Silling Architects is handling the redesign of the building's electrical system, Gruzinskas said.
Keeping with the theme of under-the-radar improvements, Gruzinskas added that the commission was working closely with the various Public Service Districts in the county on a longer-term project of upgrading water lines and fire hydrants. Initial studies on the extent of repairs needed, he said, are expected to be completed by midsummer, with the improvements to come afterwards.
Gruzinskas said funds through the American Rescue Plan will be used to supplement these fixes, as the Public Service Districts have an unfortunate tendency to be an afterthought when budgeting in many places.
"These PSD's are always saddled with unfunded band-aids, whether it's the state or federal government. They're always required to do something (or other). With these ARP funds, they're able to do it," he said. "I'm not even sure if that's within the next year or so, but I'm hoping that the studies will be done within the next six to eight months, and the actual upgrades to the water lines and hydrants is going to be a little longer."
Additionally, engineering and architectural studies are still underway to determine the future of the Marshall County Health Department. In July, the county purchased the now-empty building adjacent to the Health Department which once housed the Moundsville Journal, as well as bureaus for the Wheeling News-Register and the Green Tab.
Gruzinskas said it was currently unknown whether the building's interior would be utilized or repurposed for the health department's use, or if the building would face extensive remodeling or demolition to be rebuilt.