The discussion at Steubenville Council's finance committee meeting focused on spending over $11 million the city has left in American Rescue Plan money on a few areas - water, sewer, streets and parks and recreation.

"Before we leave here, we need some kind of direction on where we are gonna go because we talked about what we're gonna do, because we're gonna talk about this and the water tower,” Councilman Willie Paul said.

Department heads have made previous presentations to council over how their department could utilize the funds, with the consensus being a majority should go to upgrading infrastructure.

"I think it's only fair that we put the lion’s share, just depending on how we divide it up, into water, sewer and streets,” Councilman Mike Hernon said.

Each member of council presented ideas on exactly how they feel the funds should be divided up. Added emphasis was put on getting some projects started sooner rather than later with inflation impacting the cost of materials.

"Some projects though, I feel like let's get these started because they're just going to get worse price wise,” Councilman Eric Timmons said.

Council plans to allocate $3.8 million to a wastewater project and $5 million towards the west end water tower project. That leaves a little over $3 million left. A portion of that money, potentially, could be used for the city's parks.

"Infrastructure is important,” Councilman Royal Mayo said, “but looking to attract young people, they want to know what is there to do here? Where am I going to take my kids? What kind of parks do we have?"

Council will now move forward on officially allocating those funds they have earmarked for the two projects in a future meeting.