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Elections board finally makes its move
YOUNGSTOWN
After several delays, the Mahoning County Board of Elections will open Tuesday at its new location at Oakhill Renaissance Place.
The board had several previous moving dates, as early as August 2010, but various problems at its new first-floor space at Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center on Oak Hill Avenue, kept postponing the relocation.
The board of elections operated at the South Side Annex in the city’s Uptown area on Market Street since 1977.
Earlier this month, elections officials complained to the county building commission about water leaking from a roof above its conference room that caused water-stained tiles and wet carpeting. That section of the roof was replaced, and the leaking issue is resolved, said Thomas McCabe, the board’s director.
Before that, there were relocation problems because of unfinished ceilings, floors, walls, doors and windows.
The telephone system, the final bit of unfinished business at Oakhill, will be ready later this week and allow the board to open at its new location Tuesday.
Nearly all of the board’s equipment — including voting machines — as well as desks, chairs and paperwork already are at Oakhill.
The county bought the former hospital in 2006 with plans to consolidate several of its departments there.
The Oakhill location has more warehouse space than the annex, McCabe said.
But the annex had 85 feet of front-counter space, more than any other county board of elections in Ohio, McCabe said.
The new board home has five separate counters, each about 8 feet long, which will work out, he said.