BRYAN — In a rare move, a northwest Ohio county commissioner reversed the swing vote he cast nine days earlier in a significant legal case and publicly admitted that, upon further reflection, he erred by not agreeing right off the bat that his county board should try getting the case heard by the Ohio Supreme Court.
The three-member Williams County Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 Thursday to take the AquaBounty right-of-way case to the high court, nine days after a 2-1 vote on March 11 against doing that.
On both occasions, Commissioner Scott Lirot, the board’s vice president, cast the swing vote.
On Thursday, he voted with Commissioner Bart Westfall to take the case to the state’s highest court.
On March 11, he had voted with Commission President Terry Rummel to end litigation.
“I think Scott had some second thoughts, and that’s what led to the decision today,” Mr. Westfall told The Blade after the vote but declined to elaborate.
Mr. Lirot didn’t say much about what led to his reversal but began his remarks near the end of the board meeting by saying that “a flood of information has come my direction, as well,” since the first vote on March 11.
“I’ve been reading nonstop,” Mr. Lirot told the other commissioners. “Truthfully, I think I was in error in wanting to go the direction I was going.”
He made a motion for the board to “finish this out with the courts and let them have their decision.”
Clerk Anne M. Retcher had them rescind the first vote and then take another vote.
The board is under a 45-day deadline to decide whether it wants the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case.
That deadline expires March 31.
A trial judge sided with AquaBounty and the village, and a state appeals court upheld that decision.
Mr. Lirot said he is hopeful the Ohio Supreme Court will look at the merits of the case.
He and Mr. Westfall have said they believe the ruling from the state appeals court was narrowly focused on whether the trial judge had followed appropriate legal procedures in making his decision.
Mr. Westfall reiterated his belief that the case centers around whether the ultimate operator of the pipeline could legally be considered a public utility, given that the pipelines were meant to accommodate a private industry.
“Plain and simple, the question is if it’s a private utility,” he said. “We’re saying it’s not.”
Board President Rummel disagreed but told The Blade he had nothing more to say about his dissenting vote.
The case in question is one with significant ramifications for financially struggling AquaBounty Technologies and the village of Pioneer, Ohio. The dispute is over a right-of-way permit the company needs and the village wants if plans for building a multi-million dollar salmon plant were ever to materialize.
The project seems unlikely now, given AquaBounty’s halt on construction at the site long ago, as well the corporate decision it made in December to stop producing genetically modified salmon and continue selling off its assets as part of a major restructuring.
But the village remains determined to get the permit from the Williams County commissioners.
It won’t say why.
The permit would provide right-of-way access along a one-mile route east of the village so that one pipeline could send water from a well and another could send treated discharge to the nearby St. Joseph River, a Maumee River tributary.
AquaBounty’s stock was listed at 60 cents a share on Thursday, far below the $1 minimum for the company to remain listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
First Published March 20, 2025, 4:32 p.m.
