Land Bank approves two insurance options

SIDNEY – The Shelby County Land Reutilization Corp. (Land Bank) passed two motions – one to renew the group’s existing Directors and Officers (D&O) liability insurance, and the other to acquire new liability insurance that would cover all the properties the Land Bank owns – at the Land Bank’s monthly meeting on June 21.

D&O insurance will protect Land Bank members from personal losses if they were to be sued as well as any legal fees and other costs that the organization could incur as a result, and the premium estimate for one year is $923. The new liability insurance for properties will include the old Wagner Manufacturing plant, which the previous insurance did not cover, and the premium estimate is $5,219 for one year.

Receiving liability insurance on the Wagner plant – which will protect the Land Bank from incurring a loss from anyone who gets hurt on the property – has been a topic of concern for the Land Bank members for a year and is especially important for when demolition begins. Both motions to use these insurance options passed unanimously.

There is no timeline on when the Wagner plant will be demolished yet, but Land Bank Director Doug Ahlers estimated at the meeting that it will not be in 2022.

There are no new developments on the non-brownfield demolition grant of $500,000 that would come from the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD). Ahlers mentioned that the federal government is still handing out COVID-19 relief money and they are looking into getting some.

The Land Bank had no demolitions and no property donations in May. There are currently six properties going into foreclosure – four in Sidney, one in Botkins and one in Port Jefferson.

The organization’s state audit is complete, and they qualified for an abbreviated audit this time. The estimated cost is $600 this year when the cost is normally in the thousands.

For May, the Land Bank had administrative expenses of $3,764.58 and programming expenses of $3,662.39 for a total of $7,426.97. The organization received $1,500 in revenue from selling five properties at $300 each, and the ending balance was $332,214.32.

The next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 19, at 1:30 p.m. in the Commissioners’ meeting room.