MAHONING COUNTY 2004 is a record year; documents are online

The work was paid for with revenue from a user fee.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- People who want to see records from the Mahoning County Recorder's Office can do it now with a few clicks of a mouse and not have to leave their house.
Land records from 1985 to the present are available for perusal and printout on the recorder's Web site, www.Landaccess.com. It's the culmination of a yearlong project, said Recorder Ronald Gerberry.
"This is going to be such a tremendous, tremendous assistance to the average citizens as well as to lawyers, bankers, real estate companies and more," Gerberry said.
No need for paper
The county bought equipment in 2001 to scan documents and create photo images of them in a computer, where they are saved. That eliminates the need to keep them on paper, which takes up valuable storage space in the courthouse.
Last year, workers from Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas completed the huge job of scanning nearly 2 million pages of documents into the recorder's computerized imaging system.
They went back only to 1985 because that's when the county began computerizing its records instead of keeping them in handwritten books, so the indexes for those records already were in the computer system.
Until now, only the indexes were available for inspection online, Gerberry said. People still had to drive to the courthouse downtown, or contact someone in the recorder's office, to get access to the actual records.
Now, all records for the past 19 years can be seen through the Web site.
Military papers
The recorder's office also is the statutory keeper of military discharge records, which also have been scanned into the system and can be viewed online.
"A veteran who maybe now lives in California, but needs to see his discharge papers, can simply call it up on his home computer," Gerberry said.
Gerberry said he intends to eventually have all records from before 1985 scanned, but not for several years. That, he said, will be an expensive and time-consuming job.
The next step in his computerization plan is to have all the county's plat books scanned into the system and available online, he said. He was unsure when that job will be done.
Gerberry said funding for the computerization work comes from a user fee paid by people who file documents in his office, not from the general fund.
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 by law must be used only for improving technology in the office, Gerberry said.
He said revenue from the user fee also pays for the cost of maintaining the Web site, so there is no charge to the public for using it.
"This Web site is not something we are required by law to do," Gerberry said. "It's a free service our office provides for the public."
bjackson@vindy.com