GETTING TO KNOW THEM — The Steubenville Kiwanis Club spent February learning from political newcomers to local offices. Club President Melissa Greco, left, and Phyllis Riccadonna, right, February program chair, are shown with the Feb. 15 presenter, Andrew Plesich, Jefferson County clerk of courts. -- Janice Kiaski

STEUBENVILLE — The Steubenville Kiwanis Club wrapped up its February programming theme of hearing from newer elected officials, welcoming Andrew Plesich, Jefferson County clerk of courts, to its Feb. 15 meeting and Steubenville 2nd Ward Councilman Tracy McManamon to its Feb. 22 noon luncheon meeting held at the Sycamore Youth Center.

Both were introduced by Phyllis Riccadonna, February program chair.

Elected in November 2020, Plesich has served in the role for slightly more than one year. He explained what the office entails and touched on what he identified as some of his accomplishments so far.

A lifelong resident of Jefferson County, Plesich said he has chosen to remain local because “I really love living here and working here.”

On a history trivia note, Plesich pointed out that he is the 29th clerk of courts to serve Jefferson County; the 20th elected clerk of courts; and just the third clerk elected since 1976, “which also happens to be the year I was born.”

Bezaleel Wells, the founder of Steubenville, was the first clerk of courts in Jefferson County, appointed in 1797. It was an appointed position from 1797 to 1851, a time frame in which nine clerks were appointed to the office.

Plesich explained what a clerk of courts does.

“I am responsible for the management and oversight of the office and the personnel. The clerk plays a vital role in the service of justice to all citizens of Jefferson County. There are two main divisions — the legal office and also the title office which I’m sure many of you probably have had to deal with,” he said. “Not only am I the clerk for Jefferson County Common Pleas general division but also clerk of courts for the state of Ohio Seventh District Court of Appeals. The office is located on the second floor of the courthouse, and we handle a variety of cases there — domestic relations that would be divorces, and dissolutions, we file orders from the judges and the magistrate there and criminal cases so if the grand jury indicts an individual, my office is responsible to file documents from those cases,” he said.

Civil cases constitute “the most voluminous types” handled, a variety of lawsuits from foreclosures and person injury to wrongful death and money judgments. “Those are a few that are the most common and yet we also handle garnishments, collect that money and we distribute that from the debtor to the employer’s bank account,” he said.

“We handle appeals cases, and that would also include in this case municipal cases and cases from our county courts. We handle liens, income tax, sales tax or any other tax Ohio collects. These are paid to my office, and we have to account for those and also certificate of judgments are also filed and recorded in my office.”

At the auto title office, “We’re responsible for the administration of certificates of title for auto and water crafts, and one thing you might not know is you can also purchase passports in our office,” he said. There is a satellite office in Rayland.

“Annually, total revenue we pay to the county is a little more than $485,000, an average for the last five years; license plate fees we collect about an average of $30,000, but if you were to total deposits of checks, cash and credit cards that comes through our office annually that averages about $2.8 million so there’s a lot of responsibility that we have, and I’m pleased to say that with all this money coming in and out of our office, we haven’t had any irregular findings that would be troubling,” Plesich said.

“We average about 25,000 titles through our office annually — a lot of titles — and the Rayland office alone does 7,700 titles,” he said. Passports issued last year numbered 12,100.

One accomplishment in office he singled out was the approval for $100,000 in CARES Act for phase one of a two-phase project to scan historical court case files. “We have files that we have in clerk of courts that date back to 1900. Anything prior to that would be at the genealogical society where you can access those. But we have so many files we estimated about 4 million pages right now with storage rooms full in the Towers building, the basement of the courthouse, in our offices, and I’m pleased to say that this was phase one I am describing right now but we’re going to be able to alleviate that burden and have all those files digitized and preserved for future generations,” he said.

Phase two involved $262,000 from American Rescue Plan funds for an overall project totaling $451,000, including $89,000 generated from fees in the clerk of courts office. “Eighty percent of this project is from money that does not come from

Jefferson County, at least not directly,” he pointed out

“That is probably by far the largest project that has ever happened in the clerk of court office for this county and obviously to be able to achieve that out of the gate my first year in office that’s very satisfying,” Plesich said, “I definitely appreciate the commissioners, that they saw the value in that project to have their support.”

Other accomplishments have included acquiring new scanning equipment for more efficient and better images of documents and the ability to receive credit card payments in the legal office for customer convenience. Some renovations of the auto title office and legal office have been made, and a ticket dispenser in the auto title office helps keep things organized, he noted.

Obtaining an electronic filing system is in the works, he added.

McManamon, who grew up in Cleveland and has lived in the San Diego area and Raleigh, N.C., moved with his family to Steubenville 20 years ago. Why he moved here and why he ran for office were two initial points he addressed.

“I had five girls, and we really did not want to raise our daughters in any other environment than what we have here, so I picked up my company and moved to Steubenville, and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done for my kids and my family,” he told the Kiwanis.

“We can move anywhere we want. My business is semi-portable, so I can pick it up and move it, but I love living here,” he said. As for running for office, he said he is not a politician. “It really was about me giving back in a small way to the city that has given me and my family so much,” he began.

“I am the only business owner on City Council — I think that lends some expertise and a little bit of knowledge about what it takes to run a business in this community, how to build it,” he said. “You’ve got to run a business, roll up your sleeves and know what it takes for businesses in this community to survive and sustain, how hard it is to hire people, how hard it is to keep people, how hard it is to grow your company, your business, and so that’s really the main reason I did (run) — to give back a little bit,” McManamon said.

Before he came on board City Council, he said he “went around to quite a few people, and I sat down with them in their office and their construction sites and I said, ‘Tell me what you think about the city, what’s good about the city, what’s bad about the city,’ and I got good and bad on just about everything. I really heard from a good selection of people in the city about what they think needs to improve, needs to happen and to change in this city so it really kind of motivated me to take those ideas, because I don’t have them, and I don’t think the seven people on City Council are the seven smartest people in Steubenville either. I think we need to listen and learn from the people who are out there doing it every day,” he said.

“I am taking those ideas and focus on as a businessman to grow the business community in this town because I have heard, I’ve known, I’ve done, I’ve walked in their shoes, and I know what it takes, so I am really focused on growing businesses in this community from a retention standpoint, because I think we have to retain our good businesses we have here, and we have to help them grow, and we have to attract new ones,” he continued.

McManamon referred to the business development Weirton has enjoyed on Three Springs Drive. “People always say, ‘Why can’t we do that?’ and there’s no reason why we can’t. I know — and I can’t share a lot of things — but there’s a lot of good things, good people trying to develop properties in this town, in the downtown area and up on the Heights as well but primarily the downtown businesses, there’s a lot of good things that are going to happen,” he said.

McManamon said one of the first things he did as an officeholder was to meet with department heads “to hear what they think, what do they think is working and how can we as City Council help them, and I really heard some interesting comments from those people. What I learned from talking to those people for the most part we are very fortunate to have the people we have leading our city,” he said, citing two examples as Water Superintendent Jim Jenkins and Finance Director Dave Lewis.

McManamon said the city has $14 million from the federal government it has to spend, “and we are very, very diligently trying to figure out the best way to spend that money primarily designed for infrastructure like water and sewer lines, which are falling apart every day, but we’re not going to spend it all there,” he said, noting some of the $14 million already has been committed.

“Good things are going to happen,” McManamon commented. I think our police force is awesome, I wouldn’t say anything negative ever, and same is true of our firefighters, our public safety officials, our ambulance guys are all doing a fantastic job — tireless workers I can tell you. We really are very fortunate in this city.”

In addressing Key Club members in the audience who always have an opportunity to note what their education plans are after high school, McManamon urged them to return, to not “overlook what we have here. There’s no other place like Steubenville — there really isn’t.”

McManamon also praised Steubenville City Schools’ plans for a major expansion of its STEM program downtown, calling it one of the greatest things to happen to Steubenville in 25 years. “The leadership and vision for that is phenomenal.”