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Drillers dig in for records
Photo
A sign at the Mahoning County recorder’s office is a not-so-subtle hint to title searchers seeking information on oil and gas rights to clean up after themselves. Title searchers have swamped the offi ce for more than a year because of oil-and-gas rights related to Utica and Marcellus shales.
By KARL Henkel
and Peter H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
The recorder’s office at the Mahoning County Courthouse resembles the bustling atmosphere of the stock exchange more than the typical librarylike card room.
It’s been an invasion for the better part of the past year, said Noralynn Palermo, county recorder.
But unlike the stock market, few words are spoken.
Many of the individuals appear timid.
Few actually live in Ohio.
Meet the faces behind the oil and gas industry, the ones who do the dirty work — if you count eight hours a day researching property titles as “dirty work.”
Title searchers — or landmen as they are referred to by Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp., a major driller in Ohio — review public records to identify current owners of oil and gas rights, said Pete Kenworthy, a company spokesman.
There are about 100 title searchers employed directly by Chesapeake and 400 more that the company has hired through subcontractors.
These searchers occupy the lunch room most of the day, spread their paperwork and laptop computers across the tables and plug their computers into the wall sockets.
They’ve taken over the courthouse basement, which sounds extreme, but only until you hear about the Columbiana County recorder’s office.
In the morning when Craig Brown, recorder, looks up from his desk, he often sees three or four people sitting in front of him.
They’re all title searchers, and they’re present eight hours a day, five days a week and have been for the better part of a year.
“I actually have people in my physical office right now doing research,” he said. “I don’t know how many public officials would be comfortable with that. But we can’t put them anywhere else.”
Those title searchers have contributed to more than 10,000 signed leases in Columbiana County during the first 10 months of 2011, Brown said.
And based on oil and natural-gas projections of the Utica and Marcellus shales, they’ll be crowding recorders’ offices for a few more years.
CHANGES NEEDED
To accommodate the invasion of land-title searchers associated with the drilling boom, Mahoning County commissioners may move their weekly meetings from the county courthouse to Oakhill Renaissance Place, said John A. McNally IV, chairman of the commissioners.
The title searchers have been occupying the tables in the courthouse basement lunch room, displacing county employees and visitors from the lunch tables.
“To free up the lunch area for our employees,” McNally said the commissioners are considering making their nearby courthouse basement meeting room available full-time with work tables and chairs and additional electrical outlets for the title searchers starting in the next few weeks.
“This is a good inconvenience for us to have to deal with. .. I’m sure the work that they do here eight hours a day is putting money into their pockets, and we hope that they’re spending it here in Mahoning County,” McNally said.
“We want to be welcoming to the industry, but we need to take care of our staff as well,” McNally said. “We want to try to minimize the inconveniences to everybody,” he added.
The commissioners’ meeting room is seldom used except for the weekly commissioners’ meetings and occasional public hearings and sheriff’s sales.
PAYING THE BILLS
McNally said he’d consider having extended courthouse hours to accommodate the title searchers but only if the drilling companies pay overtime costs for sheriff’s deputies and deputy recorders.
Palermo agreed the drilling companies should pay those overtime costs.
One drilling company, which asked not to be identified, has already made such a payment offer to her, said Palermo, whose office occupies parts of the first floor and basement of the courthouse.
About 50 title searchers, who are researching land parcels and owners before drilling companies approach owners seeking mineral rights, descend on the courthouse daily, some from as far away as Oklahoma and Texas, Palermo said.
The title searchers associated with the drilling boom have been here for more than a year, said Palermo, whose office has a staff of six, including herself.
This year alone they have contributed to more than 1,350 signed leases in Mahoning County during the first 10 months of 2011, Palermo said.
“If these folks are going to be here, as I think they will, for three to four years at least doing title work, we’re going to be looking at trying to set up a little bit of a headquarters for them,” McNally said.
In Columbiana County, commissioners have approved a contract with Chesapeake to digitize records from the recorders office.
It comes at a cost of $250,000 — all paid for by Chesapeake — and will be a benefit to both company and county.
KEEPING THE RECORDS
In the first nine months of this year, the title searchers have spent more than $55,000 at 10 cents a page for photocopies of land ownership documents in the Mahoning County Recorder’s Office, Palermo said. “Every copy’s paid for,” she said, adding that the revenue goes to the county’s general fund.
“These are old record books. Care has to be taken with them, and that’s something the recorder’s staff has continued to stress to these folks,” McNally said of the land records in the recorder’s office.
“They’re being used over and over because everyone’s looking up the same things,” Palermo said. “There are some binders that are broken,” she added.
“Unless I have security down there and open every book for every person, I don’t know what I can do,” to protect the public records, she said.
“The old records, they’re not allowed to make copies of those. They have to come to us, and we make them from the film,” Palermo said.
“Anything from 1985 to the present is scanned, so they’re able to make copies right from the computer,” but older records are mostly on microfilm, she added.