Community Stabilization Administrator Kathy Dudley will lose her position leading the land bank at year’s end. The move comes in the wake of former Port Authority executive director Mike McNamara resignation last month. McNamara ran both entities for two years until the commissioners hired Dudley in 2018.
“With the county navigating unprecedented times in mitigating effects of COVID-19 while maintaining services and operations effectively and cost efficiently, coupled with the land bank program no longer having a stable funding source, the board of commissioners believes it is timely and most cost effective to consolidate positions and create greater efficiencies,” Boyko told the Journal-News.
“She’s done an excellent job and I’d continue to look for a place to have her work for us,” said Commissioner Don Dixon. “She’s got a lot of talent, she’s very nice to work with, she does a good job, you couldn’t ask for a better person to come back and work for you when things straighten up.”
With $2.7 million it received in Moving Ohio Forward grants from the state, Butler County formed a land bank in 2012 to deal with blighted buildings. Dudley said 465 bad buildings were torn down for $3.14 million in Hamilton and Middletown under that program.
Then the county was awarded $4.3 million in federal Hardest Hit Funds for the Neighborhood Initiative Program (NIP) beginning in 2014. That program ends this year. The only funding source left, unless new federal or state funding materializes, is Delinquent Tax and Assessment Collection (DTAC) funds. There is a $400,000 DTAC bank balance, according to Dudley.
“The way things are it’s not business as usual, we don’t need as many people as we’ve got right now,” Dixon said. “It just worked out, that’s the timing and that’s the environment and that’s the economic situation and that’s reality.”
Dudley, an attorney who handled land bank business as Hamilton’s assistant law director before she was laid off there, told the Journal-News she has no interest in running both entities. Port authorities help finance large job-creating business projects.
“My forte is the law, I have no problem being a lawyer, I enjoy being a lawyer,” Dudley said. “I’m not disappointed with how the county has treated me in any way,”
The commissioners hired Dudley in the fall of 2018 after the land bank had to give up $620,839 in federal funds because the money wasn’t spent by the deadline. At that time, Hamilton had torn down 140 blighted properties for a total of $1.78 million in NIP reimbursement. Middletown tore down 21 homes for $277,214 in funds.
After Dudley took over, Middletown increased demolitions and Fairfield Twp. downed several properties, and the county was able to recoup $368,613 of the lost federal funds. In the end the Hamilton demolished 186, Middletown 94 and Fairfield Twp. 10 for a total of 290 homes.
“This was basically a financial decision, there isn’t another funding stream all the money has been received, the reimbursements,” said Treasurer Nancy Nix, who chairs the Land Bank board.
A 500 percent leap from about 500 to 3,000 foreclosures between 1999 and 2010 prompted the establishment of the land bank.
During her final four months, Dudley said she plans to concentrate on getting more properties repurposed. She said some people have purchased the vacant lots, to erect fences or just to give them more space. The cities have created parks, parking lots and cleared the way for redevelopment.
“The land bank is something that’s here to stay and should be here to stay,” she said. “Because the cities and townships are dealing with some unintended consequences of policies by banks and federal programs that have really hit them hard.”
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