CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Efforts to combine land services in Clarion County were highlighted Tuesday morning when Cheri Abdelsamie was made permanent director of GIS (Geographic Information System) and Assessment.
The realignment of GIS and Assessment is part of plans by Commissioners to have all land services located on the first floor of the Clarion County Courthouse. Planning will also move to the courthouse, joining the Register and Recorder Office and Assessment.
“All of the land services should be in one area,” said Commissioner Ted Tharan. “We had GIS over here (Main Street Administrative Building) and Assessment over there (Courthouse), Planning over here, Recorder over there, and they would be running back and forth. We found it in the best interest of time and everything else to have all of those offices in a row.”
The closer relationship between GIS and Assessment has also added $2 million in assessed value to the tax rolls using the county’s mapping resources, according to Commissioner Ed Heasley. Abdelsamie’s new position will be full time, exempt at an annual salary of $47,476.00.
Tharan outlined plans to make better use of space in the Courthouse and the maintenance staff will be responsible for renovations.
“We moved GIS over beside Assessment into where EMA was (formerly voter registration) located,” said Tharan. “The Maintenance Department is painting and fixing up the old Commissioners’ office, and Assessment will move from the back corner office up to the front after it’s renovated. We plan on tearing out the mezzanine that is back there to get up to code and putting Planning over where Assessment was located. It will probably be a few weeks for the painting and new wiring for computers and new flooring, along with and ADA counter.”
The long-term goal is have everything online and allow people to subscribe to a service, and they will be able to sit at their office and research deeds, maps, and do everything thy need to do and won’t need to come to the Courthouse.
Tharan said the Register and Recorder Office already has computers that allow people to use the service and do it themselves. The computer access allows research of deeds back to the 1920’s, entering the name of a deed holder.
The combination of the two offices has saved an estimated $40.000.00 to $50,000.00 a year.
“It’s going to take some time, but that’s the future,” said Tharan. “When that eventually happens, you won’t have all of the people coming in a few years ago for all of the deed researching for Marcellus. You couldn’t even get into the Courthouse. There were abstractors everywhere looking for deeds to find out if the deeds were clear.”
“Our goal is to bring everything up to this century.”
