Land bank appoints executive director

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Debora Flora of Youngstown has been appointed as the first executive director of the Mahoning County Land Reutilization Corp., also known as the Mahoning County Land Bank, effective immediately.

A nonprofit corporation, the land bank operates under new Ohio laws designed to streamline and economize the process of acquiring and clearing debts from vacant, abandoned, tax-delinquent properties and returning them to productive use.

Flora was appointed by the land bank’s nine- member board of directors.

The land bank is the lead entity in the Ohio Attorney General’s “Moving Ohio Forward” demolition grant program.

The land bank and 12 Mahoning County communities will share $1.53 million in funding for demolition of blighted residential properties.

The land bank shares offices at 20 Federal Place with the Lien Forward Ohio Regional Council of Governments, which has been engaged in similar land reclamation activities, and which Flora has headed since April 2007.

The Lien Forward board of directors has voted to dissolve Lien Forward by the end of 2012, but the land bank will continue as its successor after that, Flora said.