A procedural accident has caused some controversy in Ironton.

At a recent meeting of the Ironton City Council, five of the seven members that were present voted to authorize Mayor Katrina Keith to submit an application to the Ohio Public Works Commission’s state capital improvements program and the local transportation improvement program for $600,000 in funds to pave the roads in Ironton.

“Katrina brought that to us, but it wasn’t a sure thing. It just meant that we could apply for it” said Councilman Jim Tordiff. He added that for them to apply it was scaled down.

He said that there was an item going on around social media saying that there were not enough council members to apply for the funds and that was not correct.

“That’s not the case,” he said.

There were originally six members of council, with one member absent due to being on vacation. The sixth member had to leave before the resolutions were read.

“So, that left five and all five members voted for it,” Tordiff said.

When all five members voted to submit an application, they didn’t remember that the resolution would take 30 days to take effect. If there had been six votes for it, the resolution would have immediately taken effect.

“Nobody caught that or even thought about it,” Tordiff said. “Katrina got back to us later and said it threw a monkey wrench into the process.”

With the resolution taking effect in 30 days, that meant they missed the deadline to apply.

Tordiff said that even though if they had applied, it didn’t mean they were guaranteed that they would get the grant. Mayors have applied for the same grant in the past and got it only once in eight years.

“It is not a sure thing,” Tordiff said. “So, if people want to point fingers, you can point fingers at anyone involved in the city. If you want to point fingers, you can say each and every councilman should have realized that at the point that when the sixth councilman got up and left, ‘Oh, this resolution that is going to be voted on in a little bit, has to have six votes or it won’t go into effect for 30 days.’ Nobody even knew the deadline was that quick. Nobody that was there during the vote thought about that, it was just something that slipped through the cracks.”

He said that if they had realized, they would have taken the resolution off the agenda and voted on it at another time when there were at least six council members present.

“If there is anyone to blame, I will take my share of the blame,” Tordiff said.

There is also the issue that the grant requires a matching fund of $300,000 from the city.

“We weren’t certain where we were going to come up with the $300,000,” said Councilman Chuck O’Leary. “And even if we did apply, there is no guarantee that we were going to get it. The grants are tough to get and Ohio Public Works only has so much funding themselves.”

Tordiff said at the same meeting, the council members were also presented with the fact they need $500,000 for the North Fifth Street bridge project and $600,000 for the water treatment plant.

“So, the application was just an application. We were just passing the resolution so we could at least submit something,” Tordiff said.