At Monday night’s Monmouth City Council meeting, council heard a presentation on the possibility of joining the Prairie Hills Land Bank Authority, which works to combat abandoned properties within an area, explains Mayor Rod Davies:
“There are twelve operating land banks around the state of Illinois and have been very successful in operating for a number of years. This gives us the opportunity to join with eleven counties to provide legal resources for those properties we have talked about that are difficult, whether they are in an estate without a beneficiary, the state may have liens or the federal government could have liens, we could be back taxes; it is kind of a legal nightmare sometimes to get these properties. As a membership in the land bank, it gives us access to specialized legal services and grant funds. It is three dollars per capita, so in our case about $24,000 to $25,000 a year.”
No action was taken by the Monmouth City Council on joining the Prairie Hills Land Bank Authority. The item will return for further discussion at a later date.
