SHAME ON WHO?
BY GEORGE LUMLEY
Is the current and recent City Administration letting garbage pile up in the neighborhoods so they can promote special interest projects? I was recently talking to a minister who encouraged me in my mission but also explained to me that no mayor wants to be remembered as the mayor who took out the trash. Mayors have to have and strive for a project to put their name on, like a new downtown hotel. So yes, garbage piles are left in the neighborhoods and available funds are spent on special downtown projects.
Recently in the news is the 8 lot parcel located at 1007 West Maryland St. This major story made front page, Sunday edition of the Courier and Press. A nice article about a burnt out warehouse, the dangers posed to the neighborhood children and general dismay of neighboring residents having to look at a growing garbage heap in their neighborhood. Yes a growing garbage heap. As with most of these abandoned properties, which the city has many, they become the place to pitch that old mattress or tv.
The article focus is on the deadbeat businessman who owned the property before it became garbage. That is just water under the bridge. Shaming the owners of these zombie properties might be fun and interesting; however, it is not going to get them cleaned up. I have not seen it work yet. If there is an action to be had against a former owner it is usually for the cleanup cost and pushing the cleanup date out to future years is not going to help that case. The shame is on the Government Body ultimately responsible for the cleanup and hauling off the city’s garbage.
When does the city plan to haul this garbage off? According to the paper maybe next year. Well good at least this site has their attention. It is a larger site than most with eight lots rather than the usual 2 or three lot sight scattered around Evansville. Is this a major portion of Evansville’s blighted lots? No, this is just eight lots of the estimated hundreds.
The city will ultimately clean this up. Why not do it now? “We don’t have the funds in this year’s budget to do it†according to Ron Beane as quoted in the Courier Press article.
This property burned in October of last year. I am sure the city officials knew this would be a city cleanup project shortly after the fire. If the Mayor and his staff were interested in property values and the residents of this neighborhood they would have requested an additional appropriation from the council. The mayor has had no problem requesting appropriations for other special interest items.
I recently ran across a document published just two months ago by the U S Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Community Planning and Development titled National Stimulus Plan (NSP) production report by Grantee. It is like a report card of how cities spent their NSP grant money. Although this program started a few years back and ended for most recipients, Evansville program is still not closed out. I found Evansville on page 50.
The record shows sum of projected Demolitions 136, sum of actual Demolitions 86, remaining demolitions 50. Interesting, grant documents show this was a $3,735,204.00 grant. Do we still have funds or owe the government 50 demolitions on a grant where we spent the money but did not accomplish the goals?
I contacted the Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development and he said “we met all requirements of the grantâ€. Pushed for more info he said “It was a flexible program that resulted in new homes in the inner city and a couple of major rehabsâ€.  I don’t know what his definition of “inner city†is but it appears the funding that was targeted to help get rid of the garbage around the city was focused on subsidizing construction around Haney’s corner and Downtown.
I hear we have a $15 million dollar Main street project where the city has already bought a not so old but vacant CVS for close to half a million and plans to demo it for a parking lot. The city paid for the old Haney’s corner drug store and demolished it. The city bought two blighted properties, for around $400,000.00, at the 500 block of NW 4th street and then paid to demolish them. Cover photo of the NW 4th St property shows how downtown blight is handled. Buy the property at inflated prices and then tear it down. In the remaining neighborhoods the property has to fall down and then wait for years to be cleaned up. This property at 1007 W Maryland is a bargain in blight removal with no inflated purchase price. As with most properties that are ready for demolition, the owners are willing to give them away.
I think I see a pattern here. We have blighted, vacant, zombie structures in the neighborhoods and that’s good because we can get grants and approved appropriations for getting rid of it and then spend the funding on something else. It might be a bad thing to actually get rid of some of the garbage in the neighborhoods because it would be more difficult to get the approval for grants and appropriations for helping the neighborhoods. Is that what is happening to the $500,000 annual appropriation in the city budget? Does most of it go for buying and then demolishing commercial buildings at select locations and the regular neighborhoods are just out of luck?
If anyone should be shamed into cleaning up the garbage it is the public officials where the task has been relinquished. With Corporations, LLCs, LLPs, bankruptcy, and the simple fact that you cannot get blood out of a turnip, the executive, legislative and judicial branches have all left the city and county officials holding the garbage bag on this one. Evansville needs to quit just holding the bag and start making progress on hauling off the garbage. Let’s fix that. Ask the Mayor and County executives why Evansville/Vanderburgh County cannot afford to haul off its garbage.
