LISBON — During a special meeting on Thursday, the Columbiana County Park Board awarded a bid on an upcoming project and moved forward with action that will transfer ownership of a park district-owned property in Salem to the city.

Two bids for culvert replacement on the Greenway Trail, which were required by bid documents, were received. TK Excavating was awarded the contract with a winning bid of $88,312. Per the contract, the project will be completed within 60 days. The culvert replacement is to be completed by Oct. 31.

“We will be working with the contractors as far as the trial closures dates are,” said Board Chairwoman Eileen Dray-Bardon. “We are not sure when that will be at this point.”

The board discussed and later approved a motion to transfer a Sharp Street property to the City of Salem.

Dray-Bardon called the transfer “meant to be,” explaining that when the park district reached out to Salem Parks Director Kelli Pastore to discuss it, the district learned that Salem Parks had just received a grant approval to put a playground in an underserved area of the city.

“Our Sharp Street property meets that required,” she said. “It’s on the west-side of town in a residential area where there are parts that are lower income.”

Dray-Bardon said the Salem Park Board voted to accept the property but since Salem Parks is not a separate entity from the city, they are under “the authority of City Council in the City of Salem so Salem City Council has to do the actual accepting of that property.”

Salem City Law Director Brooke Zellers requested the official minutes of the county park board that indicates it is willing to transfer the Sharp Street property to Salem. Once the minutes are provided, a resolution will be presented to Salem Council. If that resolution is approved then the county park board must pass its own resolution on the matter and a judge then signs off and approves the transfer. Dray-Bardon is hopeful all steps can be completed by the early part of October.

“I don’t think there will be any issues. We tried to do this in a different way several months ago but it just didn’t get any traction,” Dray-Bardon said. “But now that Kelli has this grant, they can do something at the property and it’s what we hoped to do with that property to begin with. We had hoped to have a partnership with Salem Parks to have a little mini park there now they will take over the whole property and have the grant opportunity to do good things there. It’s a win-win for everybody.”