Medina County, Ohio Recorder Race

Nancy Abbott (R)

“I serve as the Medina County Recorder. I have met and conquered challenges facing the office in the past four years. First, the county's computers and software applications used in the office were not Y2K compliant.

“With two years of planning, the cooperation of other county offices, my staff, and the people who use my office on a daily basis, we had a system working on January 1, 2000. The new system also provided new features to allow researchers to find documents in a number of new ways, including an easy name search as well as a subdivision search.

“Number one, I would continue to provide a high level of customer service. I will continue to provide remote access to indexes as requested by many of the users of the Recorder's office.

“Number two, I will continue to record documents and file them in a timely manner (within 24 hours of filing).

“And, continue the process of developing a secondary or backup procedure for every system (manual and computer) in the office. For example, the ‘front desk’ or cashiering system is now an automated computer system. I am developing a manual procedure to file documents should the computers be unavailable.”

Bob Jones (D)

“I have 35 years experience as an administrator at the county level of government and would contribute by meeting the needs of the people who use the recorder’s office and do it in a much more timely fashion.

“I also have communication skills that allow me to communicate with people who use the service.

“Number one, I plan to reestablish the liaison committee with the Land Title Association because the title people are using the recorder’s office 90% of the time.

“Number two, there are a lot of other services the recorder can provide, from filing any permanent documents like discharge paper or power of attorney.

“I would make people aware of this, inform the public about services and bring the office back to the citizens of Medina County.

“Thirdly, we will reexamine the time frame it’s taking to file all title documents in recorders office.

The Land Title Assoc., through the commissioner’s office, filed a complaint about the timeliness of the recorder’s office last January.
“I feel the recorder’s officer shouldn’t be about the hardware and the software. Instead, it’s the services to the community that’s important.