MAHONING CO. Online records go back to 1985

The work was paid for with revenue from a user fee built into recording costs.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County Recorder Ron Gerberry killed two birds with one milestone last week.
On Tuesday, workers from Affiliated Computer Services finished a yearlong job of scanning recorded documents dating back to 1985. They put more than 2 million documents through the photo imaging machine during that time, Gerberry said.
Having that job completed will ultimately allow Gerberry to free up valuable space in the courthouse, which is something he's long wanted to do.
"And we didn't spend a penny out of the general fund to do this," said Gerberry, who is in his third year as recorder.
Under Ohio law, a $4 fee is included in the cost of recording documents at the recorder's office. That money is set aside and must be used for improving technology in the office, Gerberry said.
That's the money that paid for the photo imaging project. It will also be used for further improvements at the office, he said.
The county bought equipment in July 2001 to scan documents and create photo images of them in a computer, where they are saved. That eliminates the need to save paper copies for reference, Gerberry said.
All documents filed since then have been scanned directly into the system. Workers from Dallas-based ACS have been working on scanning documents filed between 1985 and 2001, and that's the job that was finished last week.
Reason for cutoff
They went back only to 1985 because that's when the county began computerizing its records instead of keeping them in handwritten books, so those records are already indexed in the computer system.
Gerberry said it would be extremely expensive to scan and image pre-1985 documents because they would have to be manually indexed.
Besides being available for viewing at the courthouse, the scanned records also can be obtained on the recorder's Web site at www.Landaccess.com
"People can look up any Mahoning County property record, right from a computer in their own home," Gerberry said. "They don't have to get in a car, come downtown and pay for parking to conduct their business."
He said people can access and print out a copy of their own property deed or any other property records.
Gerberry said public use of the recorder's office Web site has risen steadily in the past year. Last month, nearly 3,400 visits to the site were noted, the most since the site was launched in September 2002.
In the past, all the recorded paper documents were put into bound volumes and stored on shelves. Thousands of the black-and-white-covered books are crammed onto shelves in the basement of Gerberry's office at the courthouse.
Now that they're no longer needed, Gerberry said it's time for the books to go. He's not sure where he'll store them, but it won't be in the courthouse.
Gerberry said he'll store the volumes off-site until he's legally cleared to destroy them. Ohio law establishes standards for retention and destruction of public documents.
Once they're gone, Gerberry said he'll overhaul the basement space in his offices to make it more efficient and user-friendly. New wiring already has been installed for computer terminals where people can do land record searches.
Plat books, which contain maps of county subdivisions dating to the early 1800s, will be kept at the office, Gerberry said. There are fewer of them, so they take up less space.
"And it's just good to keep them around for their historical value, if nothing else," he said.
bjackson@vindy.com