PETITION TO THE WASHINGTON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

We, the undersigned residents of Washington County, Ohio, call on the Board of Commissioners to require the Southeastern Ohio Port Authority to make all contracts, land deals, financial records, and compensation fully public as a condition of receiving the county’s annual appropriation of one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. We further call for a full public accounting of the one-point-five million dollar county funding for the AMP site, the one million dollar brownfield grant for the Muskingum River Industrial Park, the one-point-five million dollars Bit56 paid the Port Authority in 2024, and any related development projects.

The Port Authority is a component unit of Washington County, created by the Commissioners in 2003, and its board is appointed by them. The 2024 audit by the Ohio Auditor of State found the Authority spent sixty-four thousand six hundred eighty-two dollars over its appropriations — a finding the Auditor flagged as noncompliance with Ohio law. Public records requests to the Authority have gone unanswered for months, including requests for the director’s salary.

In August 2024, the Commissioners approved placing one-point-five million dollars into a community development fund for the Port Authority to purchase the former AMP-Gorsuch site on State Route 7. The Authority has since leased eighteen acres of the Muskingum River Industrial Park for a two-hundred-megawatt data center and acquired the AMP site itself. Residents only learned the full scope of these plans this year, after officials had signed non-disclosure agreements and coordinated behind closed doors for years.

At the county office, a clerk who pulled the file reported that notes previously written down were no longer in the record. The same file review showed multiple option agreements under different company names at the same time. No Secretary of State registration was located for Muskingum Landhold LLC. Some amendments were filed with no memorandum attached. The June termination document did not cover HashWorks or Muskingum Landhold.

We believe the public has a right to know how its land, water, and tax dollars are being used before these decisions are made, not after. We ask the Commissioners to require full transparency as a condition of continued funding.

Who it is addressed to

Washington County Board of Commissioners

Charlie Schilling, Eddie Place, and Greg Nohe

Paper copies are also circulating through MASH Focus Publication and Network. Questions and documented corrections: [email protected].