MEDINA – County commissioners have approved a tax abatement agreement on a $5 million expansion project at the Akron-Medina Corporate Park in Granger Township.

Commissioners voted unanimously Feb. 14 to approved the abatement of 50 percent of the real estate tax on the project for 15 years.

Developer Gino Faciana reported in an application to the Medina County Economic Development Corporation that the project is expected to result in the employment of 10 people in the first year of operation and 20 people in the second year. Average annual salaries for those employees is estimated at $40,000.

The 83,000-square-foott building proposed by Faciana will be the sixth in the corporate park located at 1153 Medina Road. No tenant for the building has yet been announced.

Highland Local Schools also approved a separate compensation agreement in which the developer agreed to compensate the school district for a portion of the taxes they would have otherwise collected on the property if no tax abatement were granted.

Architect hired

Commissioners approved an agreement to pay Silling Associates $6,500 to assess the possibility of renovating the basement of the old Courthouse building which houses the Adult Probation Department.

Chief Probation Officer Veronica Perry has said crowding is an issue for her department but privacy is a bigger problem since probation officers often must do confidential interviews in rooms shared with other staffers. She said tearing down some existing walls and building new ones could result in a floor plan that uses the existing space more efficiently.

County commissioners had been considering moving probation officers into the Courthouse Commons building whose owners Mark Dorman and Tracey Green had offered to sell the building to the county for $1.6 million or lease the third floor to the Adult Probation Department.

Miller said the county prepared a five-year lease agreement for the space but that option was taken off the table when the building owners put “conditions on the lease the county could not accept.”

Appeal to legislators

Commissioners adopted a resolution urging state legislators to take action during the current budget process that would guard against revenue losses to the county from the elimination of sales taxes on Medicaid managed care organizations.

Ohio was ordered by the federal government to cease collection of the tax next year. The loss to Medina County has been estimated at almost $1 million annually to county government and school districts. A budget fix proposed by the governor would replace most of the losses to the state budget with a new fee imposed on Medicaid providers but would not fully compensate counties for the loss of revenue.

County commissioners are asking state legislators to approve a different solution to the loss in Medicaid taxes that treats the state and counties equitably.

Immunizations

Commissioners authorized a contract with the Health Department to provide Hepatitis B immunization and other occupation immunization services to employees of the Medina County Sheriff.

Road work

Commissioners approved an agreement between the Medina County engineer and the Ohio Department of Transportation to reconstruct North Carpenter Road in Brunswick. Work on the project is tentatively expected to begin in 2018.

Commissioners also authorized the highway engineer to advertise for bids for the resurfacing of Chippewa Road from Lake Road to state Route 3 in Lafayette and Montville townships.

Personnel expenses

Commissioner authorized the expenses for several county employees to attend a series of out-of-town meetings and seminars. Among those expenses was $5,000 for two employees in the Adult Probation Department to attend the National Drug Court Conference in Reno, Nev.; $1,700 for the county coroner and an assistant to attend training programs on death investigations in Cleveland; $750 for the clerk of courts to attend a three-day conference in Columbus; $800 for a new court magistrate to attend a three-day orientation in Columbus; and $300 for another employee in the clerk of court’s office to attend a two-day conference in Columbus.