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Local Ohio Leaders From Both Parties Welcome COVID Relief Money

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — $2.2 billion is coming to Ohio’s 88 counties from the new COVID relief package, and another $2.2 billion will go to 930 Ohio cities and villages. And local leaders of both parties say they need the money.

Counties will get from $255,380,000 for Franklin County to $2,500,000 for Vinton County.

The "Ohio Find It Here" sign welcomes people on the William S. Ritchie Jr. Bridge, also known as the Ravenswood Bridge, on the border with West Virginia.
The “Ohio Find It Here” sign welcomes people on the William S. Ritchie Jr. Bridge, also known as the Ravenswood Bridge, on the border with West Virginia. [Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau]
Tim Bubb is the president of the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, and a Republican commissioner in Licking County, which will get more than $34 million. He said he knows his GOP colleagues in Congress voted against the package, and some others have had sharp criticisms of it.

“And I understood that. But overall the country needs an infrastructure program and it needs relief from the pandemic,” Bubb said in an interview for “The State of Ohio”.

The range for cities and villages is a thousand dollars to the smallest communities including Octa, Elgin and Miltonsburg to more than a half a billion dollars for the city of Cleveland.

Democrat David Berger is the mayor of Lima, getting more than $26 million. He’s also a member of the bipartisan Ohio Mayors’ Alliance. And he said he doesn’t understand the partisan opposition.

“I don’t have the luxury of simply deciding things on whose team I’m on,” Berger said, also on “The State of Ohio”. I’m on the team of my community.”