VIENNA — Nearly a month after the county’s engineer gave Niles officials a presentation and a proposal for purchasing salt ahead of next winter, trustees reported they received a similar letter.

Trustee Mike Haddle reported during Tuesday’s meeting that officials received a letter from Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro notifying them that his office will submit its salt order in April for the 41 entities it serves.

“He’s trying to push for the townships to buy their own salt; what ends up happening is he buys it, and it gets delivered to his facility and everybody has to go pick it up,” Haddle said. “He wants to cut out being the middleman is basically what he wants to do.”

The letter states DeChristofaro is still willing to purchase salt for them if they wish, but he also was willing to give the trustees information to sign up for the Ohio Department of Transportation’s contract.

There would be no markup if the township purchased salt that way, Haddle said, only getting charged Deputy Road Superintendent Ron Fraser’s fee on top of wear and tear on their vehicles and fuel.

Haddle said he thought self-purchasing was a good idea, suggesting that they partner with another township.

Trustee Phil Pegg questioned what DeChristofaro planned to do with the salt dome at his location, for which he said 17 entities had gone to the state to get a grant.

“Are we gonna have a salt dome, basically sitting there on North River Road that can hold 25,000 tons — is it just going to sit there empty?” Pegg said.

Fraser asked about the minimum amount of salt the engineer’s office could deliver.

“If they’ll deliver us 250 tons of salt with no hesitation — that’s what we need,” Fraser said.

Fraser also asked why the letter noted 500 tons, with resident Gene McCarthy explaining that it was the minimum the township had to get to obtain state purchasing.

“And that was one of the reasons why that dome was built over there on North River, so that we could get it for a cheaper price for people like Fowler and the smaller (entities),” Pegg said.

McCarthy warned that the state was a priority, and the community whose experience he was speaking from got cut off, adding that the township needed to have enough salt on hand to cover them.

Pegg noted that salt was cheaper in the spring, adding that they could save “a lot of money” if they bought it then.