Occupy Youngstown to protest sheriff’s sale

Staff report

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Occupy Youngstown is planning a demonstration against a sheriff’s sale at the Mahoning County Courthouse on Tuesday.

Sixty-five residential properties will be auctioned off at 1:30 p.m. by the county sheriff in the county commissioners’ meeting room in the courthouse basement.

The occupy group’s demonstration will begin at 12:30 p.m. and end at 2:30 p.m.

In a prepared statement, the group said it opposes the use of sheriff’s sales for foreclosed properties.

“The weaknesses of such a system include that these kinds of sales operate underneath full disclosure; they put struggling homeowners on the street; they pay no attention to neighborhood needs or opinion; and properties are subjected to neglect while they wind their way toward sheriff-sale dissolution,” the statement reads.

OY says it supports using land banks to manage and transfer foreclosed or abandoned properties instead.

It pointed out that Trumbull County uses land banks. Demonstrators will meet at noon at Pig Iron Press on North Phelps Street.