Ohio AG, others urging Congress to protect funds

Yost: Changes needed to keep compensation fund for victims solvent.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost signed a joint letter Monday from attorneys general across the U.S. urging Congress to make changes to protect the solvency of state victims compensation funds.

Yost and other Ohio leaders are looking at ways to increase access to the fund after a Dayton Daily News investigation found strict program rules frequently deny aid to victims, including survivors from last year’s mass shooting in the Oregon District.

But despite routinely denying more victims than it helps, the fund has been shrinking for years. The fund ended last year with a balance of $6.2 million, the lowest amount in a decade and a sharp drop from $17.3 million in 2016.

“Immediate solutions are required to ensure the longterm viability of this fund that offers crime victims a helping hand at perhaps the most vulnerable point in their life,” Yost said in a statement today. “The financial strength of the fund is critical in making sure all Ohioans have access to the help they need.”

The fund gets much of its money from criminal fines, forfeited bail bonds, penalties and assessment in federal criminal

Connection of Ohio, an organ donation center which plans to move its regional office from Dayton to Kettering.

If approved, the IPC deal also would be the largest tract of MVRP land sold by the city since it bought more than 300 acres there for $1.5 million in 2018, according to Kettering City Manager Mark Schwieterman.

“They have an interest. They own some of the adjacent land and they are therefore interested in this land,” he said. “And the city is allowing them enough due diligence ... to review their plans and decide whether to move forward with the transaction.”

Schwieterman said the city has been working to sell “property for some time.” The business would have a year to close on the land should the city approve the deal, records show.

Semarjian said, “We just think that that area is a wonderful area. There’s already some really good companies in the park.

“And we’re hoping to bring the energy and the investment to bring many more companies and create much more development in Kettering,” he added.

ICP works in commercial and industrial leasing, property management, acquisition, design-build and private-public partnerships, according to the company’s website.

With California-based Industrial Realty Group, ICP is the company that sold a former General Motors assembly plant in Moraine to a Chinese industrialist in 2014, leading to the creation of Fuyao Glass America, the world’s largest factory devoted to the creation of automotive glass.