U.S. Rep. Bob Latta renting office space in Lorain Co. administration building

The Lorain County Commissioners are landlords to a member of the U.S. Congress. The three-member, all-Republican board signed a 21-month lease agreement with U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, for the congressman to use 1,477 square feet of office space on the fifth floor of the County Administration Building at 226 Middle Ave. in Elyria. The lease began Thursday and ends Jan. 2, 2025. Latta will pay $1,600.08 per month for 21 months for a total of $33,601.68 due to the county as his landlord. Moore said the top selling point for the agreement was security. "Usually I'd say I'd rather see this type of money going into the private sector, but based on today's environment politically, what's going on nationally, they do have a lot of requirements regarding security," Moore said. "And our county sheriff's department is actually in our building quite a bit, so this was one of the premier stops to having a sitting congressman in our building." "I concur," Riddell said. In other business on Friday, the board unanimously awarded a $324,000 contract to R&I Construction Inc. of Tiffin for the Oberlin Road bridge No. 644 superstructure replacement. The firm's bid was the best of two received March 14 and came in under the Lorain County Engineer's Office's estimated cost of $412,419. Work will be completed on or before Oct. 1. The entire project is being paid for by the Ohio Department of Transportation.Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.