Local residents watch the joint board meet Tuesday afternoon.

The Miami River Improvement Project is on hold.

The Joint Board of Commissioners met Tuesday afternoon at the Logan County Engineer's Highway Garage meeting room.

The board includes commissioners from Logan, Hardin, Champaign, Auglaize, and Shelby Counties.

Thirteen of the fifteen commissioners were at the meeting. (Audio and video interviews included.)

The board voted 10-3 to rescind the August 29th, 2006 resolution, which started the controversial project.

That original piece of legislation called for the removal of logjams along the Great Miami River and Muchinippi Creek.

The cleanup may still happen, but first the joint board wants to seek more legal advice at the local and state level.

The commissioners want to have more discussion with prosecutors in each county and also see what the attorney general's office can do to answer many questions.

Some of the questions include:

Can the project still go forward if one of the counties opts out?

Can the funding system be re-structured? Currently, the project calls for a $25 per parcel assessment fee and an annual $2.50 maintenance fee.

The board wants to see if any new laws have been passed since August 2006.

The joint board chairman is Logan County Commissioner Dave Knight.

He allowed a handful of comments from the public before the joint board took any vote.

About 30 local residents attended. Many of them said they were against the improvement project.

John Bayliss reads his letter at the joint board meeting.

He read a prepared letter during the meeting.

Here is a copy of a news release from Bayliss.

John Bayliss calls for immediate rejection of the Miami River project after months of conversation and investigation with Representative Tony Core and County Prosecutor Jerry Heaton. The current Miami River petition is subject to the 2006 laws and not the recent changes that were sponsored by Representative Core. "I had hoped we could effectively utilize the current law to benefit our community, but I believe we can not. We need legislative change to improve the petition process for the future projects." Said John Bayliss, Logan County Commissioner.

The voters of Logan County rejected the project with 57 percent of the vote in the November General Election. Commissioners Bayliss and Reser voted against the assessment of the project on March 6, 2008. "The voters of Logan County represent approximately 80 percent of the funding, over 82 percent of the parcels and 100 percent of the cleanup of the Miami River. I acted and voted in support of the voters of Logan County." Said Bayliss.

News Director Bill Tipple spoke with Bayliss after the meeting.

Listen to the commissioner talk about the meeting and why he thinks Logan County should NOT be part of the project. 

Fellow Commissioners Reser and Knight feel that our county should opt out of the project because of the referendum that was turned down by local voters last November.

Watch Knight talk about the legal questions that have put the project on hold.

Watch Knight share his feelings on the project. 

Finally, the joint board said they would like to have their legal questions addressed quickly by each county prosecutor.