Columbus City Council has a new member.
Rob Dorans was appointed at last night's meeting to fill the term of Mike Stinziano, who becomes Franklin County Auditor next month. Dorans starts serving next week. He is a recreation and parks commissioner and the lead attorney for the labor construction organization called Affiliated Construction Trades of Ohio. He was chosen from a pool of 14 finalists under a new voter-approved process. He will run for election in November with two other incumbents against a field of three other Democrats. Council also approved spending 3.8 million dollars to purchase up to 40 homes on local land bank properties and make them affordable. Sponsoring Council member Shayla Favor says under the pilot program, a newly formed land trust administered by the county’s land bank would hire developers to build homes on city land-bank properties, with city funding lowering the cost.
Favor says the properties will remain in the land trust, restricting the future sale price and buyer. Council also renewed a contract for 2 million dollars with the operator of the city's third-party EMS billing system. Sponsoring Council member Mitch Brown.
Brown was Columbus' safety director when the controversial program was launched in 2002.
