July 02, 2009

Bracketed by Vacant Houses, Resident Pleads for City Help

(News)

For an example of the problems created by the city's abandoned houses, it's hard to top Jo Ann Slater's story.

Slater says her two-story frame home in the 1300 block of Locust Street needs $10,000 in repairs because of damage caused by the vacant houses on both sides.

"I've lived there for 20 years, and I'm in danger of losing my home," says Slater, who confronted city officials following Wednesday's council meeting. "I'm 62 years old. I have nowhere else to go, and I don't think I should have to lose my home because of two condemned houses."

. . .

The houses, built in the early 1900s, are one block off of Walnut Street in the city's Third Ward. Zion Baptist Church is a few doors away.

Slater, who works in a beauty salon, says the roof, porch and foundation of her home has been damaged by falling debris and other problems caused by the empty houses.

"The house at 1316 is a burned-out shell, and it's dangerous," Slater says. "I have great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews come to my home, and I'm afraid they're going to get hurt."

Slater, who says she has complained to the city on at least eight separate occasions, was told by a contractor that because the houses on Locust are so close together, repairs to her house would be more difficult and costly than usual.

. . .

County tax records indicate that 1316 Locust is owned by Eugene Williams of "no known address."

The home at 1312 is owned by one of Slater's neighbors.

Court records indicate that thousands of dollars in delinquent taxes --- some dating back to the mid-1980s --- are due to the city, McKeesport Area School District, Allegheny County and GLS Capital, which in 2000 purchased many older tax liens.

Both houses have been condemned by the city.

. . .

Mayor Jim Brewster says the city hasn't been ignoring Slater's pleas for help, but it has taken time to move the houses through the legal process required to demolish them --- and to find the money to pay for the work.

The city has spent $3 million in the last five years demolishing more than 400 vacant houses, Brewster says. Another 400 are slated for demolition.

On July 15, city officials will hold condemnation proceedings on an additional 65 houses.

. . .

The city has been trying to attack groups of abandoned houses simultaneously, Brewster says, but may be able to attack the two buildings on Locust Street because they're posing a danger to Slater's home.

The mayor says he spoke to Building Inspector Chris House on Wednesday morning to discuss Slater's case.

In addition, the mayor says, residents who want to have a house torn down at their own expense may borrow the money from the city, and make monthly payments on the balance.

City Solicitor J. Jason Elash told Slater Wednesday night he would contact local agencies, including McKeesport Housing Corp., that might be able to offer assistance to pay for the repairs her home needs.

. . .

Meanwhile, a request by Allegheny County for $22 million in federal money (including $800,000 for the city) to demolish abandoned houses was turned down, Brewster says.

However, the city and county plan to revise the proposal and ask again, the mayor says.

Posted at 07:23 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: News | No comments | Link To This Entry |

July 01, 2009

No Negativity Zone

(Rants a.k.a. Commentary)

Above: Linda Rowe, medical assistant, and Mary Markle, R.N., review patient files at the Ninth Street Clinic, Downtown. The two-year-old clinic in the former YWCA building treats about 30 people each week. All of the staff members are volunteers. (Jason Togyer/Tube City Almanac)

. . .

I've been working for two weeks on a story about the Ninth Street Clinic that will hopefully be published this Saturday. The folks at the clinic are doing God's work.

The story would have appeared sooner, but other events kept pushing it aside.

I'm only one man, and dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a moon-shuttle conductor.

Your patience is appreciated. I hope the story will be worth the wait.

. . .

Meanwhile, for the past 48 hours at work, I've been hearing over and over why various things can't be done.

Back here at the website, I'm becoming convinced we should just burn down the whole Mon Valley and collect the insurance.

I've got a relative in the hospital, my car's due for inspection and I just noticed that water is running down the outside of my house, not the drainpipes, which means the gutters are clogged.

. . .

I can't take any more. Any more of this crap and I'm moving to Yellowstone National Park to live in a tree and play the flute.

In other words, to quote a great philosopher, Eric Cartman: "I'm trying to make the best out of a bad situation ... screw you guys, I'm going home."

So, by the power invested in me by the bylaws of Tube City Community Media Inc. (which I wrote), I am declaring a temporary moratorium on negativity. If you want to post something negative, go somewhere else for a while.

. . .

And if you don't like that, hard cheese.

Here's a picture of my mom's dog. She's a cute dog.

You wouldn't say something negative to a cute dog, would you?

Posted at 08:00 am by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Rants a.k.a. Commentary | seven comments | Link To This Entry |

June 30, 2009

Tear 'Em All Down, and Let God Sort 'Em Out

(Commentary/Editorial)

Following up yesterday's Almanac, here's just one of the ads on eBay seeking a sucker to buy an abandoned house.

According to county tax records, this house at 2902 Freeland is a 1900-vintage frame structure in "D-minus" condition.

The only grade lower than "D-minus" is "condemned," or possibly "on fire."

And --- surprise! The guy who's selling it bought it from Penny Foreclosures LLC, the same company mentioned in Adam Fleming's City Paper cover story.

And --- surprise, surprise! There's an idiot actually bidding on this house. Why not? You can put it onto your eBay Mastercard!

(The same bidder just sold another house in McKees Rocks for $107.50 per month. It's another marginal structure that will probably wind up getting torn by the Borough of McKees Rocks at the taxpayers' expense.)

Sometimes I really feel like crying.

. . .

Meanwhile, in the comments to yesterday's Almanac, Alert Reader John asks a valid question:

Why can't we take the money that the mayor literally begs from the state government and tear down everything that is uninhabitable? Do it all at once, call it the Summer of Love or something, I don't care. Maybe sell some T-shirts, hand out snow-cones and funnel cakes.

The reason these houses are bought up for cheap and rented out is because they're there. Get rid of the inventory, and they won't have anything to buy.

The mayor loves to complain about how 40 percent of the property in town is rental property, but I'm sick of hearing the complaints. If you don't want renters, get rid of the rental properties.

. . .

These are all good points, and I'm not trying to make excuses, nor am I trying to brown-nose the mayor or anyone else. (Like Pete Flaherty, I consider myself "nobody's boy.")

But I should point out that the city has asked for $800,000 in demolition assistance from Allegheny County.

And while that sounds like a lot of money, it costs $10,000 to tear down a house. That's 80 houses. Eighty houses doesn't even make a dent in the problem.

. . .

The 2000 U.S. Census estimated that there were more than 1,400 vacant houses in the City of McKeesport, and 830 of those were built before 1939.

That doesn't include vacant commercial buildings, or empty apartment buildings --- like the empty three-story building at the corner of Olive Street and Jenny Lind Street, or the one a block down at Ninth and Jenny Lind.

The city has had a very aggressive program of tearing down vacant houses over the past 10 years, but I'd be willing to bet they're barely keeping up with the houses being abandoned every year.

. . .

Let's assume the city now has 1,000 abandoned houses. It would cost $10 million to tear them all down.

You have to sell one hell of a lot of T-shirts and snow-cones to pay that bill.

And we haven't even begun to tackle all of the vacant houses in Glassport, Duquesne, Clairton, Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Whitaker, Wilmerding ... every community in the Mon Valley has the same exact problem, not just McKeesport.

. . .

Of course, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Buffalo, Detroit, Scranton, Detroit, Erie, Detroit* ... all of the other metro areas in the "Rust Belt" are also full of abandoned houses. Who's going to pay for tearing down their houses when McKeesport gets $10 million?

The real solution has to be creating demand for property in the Mon Valley, so that private developers will be willing to buy up abandoned houses and tear them down.

Otherwise, we're spending a lot of taxpayer money and getting nothing but vacant lots in return.

. . .

By the way, the "40 percent" figure John quoted is wrong. It's too low.

In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 47 percent of the single-family homes in the city were rental units.

Like I said, I think I'm going to cry.

(more)

Posted at 6:32 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Commentary/Editorial | eight comments | Link To This Entry |

June 29, 2009

Journalism Worth Reading

(Commentary/Editorial)

In case you missed it, Adam Fleming's cover story in the current issue of Pittsburgh City Paper is well worth reading.

(City Paper, despite being a "free entertainment weekly," does some of Pittsburgh's best reporting into urban living, and that includes issues in the Mon Valley.)

Fleming explores an increasingly serious problem in Pittsburgh, McKeesport and other older communities. Because real-estate values are so low for older single-family frame houses, people are buying them off of the Internet, sight unseen.

Most of these buyers claim they intend to "renovate" the houses and re-sell them, but that's generally speaking a load of bull.

In most cases, what they intend to do is rent them as cheaply as possible, usually to people on public assistance, until they're uninhabitable.

. . .

Do you want to see the results? Take a ride up Stewart Street in McKeesport, and weep.

When I was a kid, it was a proud neighborhood of working-class people from all nationalities and races. My aunt lived on Stewart, and my grandmother lived a few houses down on Maple Street. Now it's infested with crummy-looking rentals.

On the 2500 block of Stewart, for instance, all 10 houses are owned by landlords who live somewhere else, according to county tax records. One is owned by a Canadian real-estate investment trust. Three of the homes are condemned.

. . .

Eventually, when these houses can't be rented because they're falling apart, they're abandoned to the elements. Then they're torn down at the city's expense, to the tune of $8,000 to $10,000 each.

As Fleming notes, municipalities have almost no recourse when this happens. Even if you can find the landlords --- often they hide behind P.O. boxes or shell corporations --- courts don't extradite people for building code violations.

. . .

The municipality can file a complaint with the local magistrate, but when the property owner's in another state, the fines are unenforceable and uncollectable.

There's no "return for code enforcement," the mayor of Mount Oliver tells Fleming. "The time and effort we put in, they get a slap on the wrist."

Many --- not all, but a sizable number --- of the renters are people who have been evicted from public housing because of criminal records or drug problems.

The landlords are out of state, so they don't care if the tenants throw garbage in the front yard, have parties at all hours of the day and night, threaten or intimidate the other residents, and generally wreck the neighborhood.

. . .

And it's not always the tenants who are at fault --- even good renters have a hard time keeping up with the maintenance on a 1910-vintage wooden house, and these structures can quickly go to seed if the landlord doesn't help.

Entire blocks of the city are now infested with these kinds of houses, as are Duquesne, Braddock and Clairton.

Glassport, Trafford, Pitcairn and Wilmerding are getting slammed now, too, and Port Vue, West Mifflin and Whitaker are also starting to see the same problem.

. . .

If your neighborhood hasn't been hit yet, just wait. Eventually, one of your elderly neighbors will die or go into a nursing home. There's a reasonable chance that their heirs will sell the house cheaply to some budding, out-of-town slumlord.

Fleming talks to one of the "investors" --- Tami Twidwell of Beaverton, Oregon --- who recently bought five houses, including three in Our Fair City.

One of those is "gutted" and "abandoned" --- meaning "worthless." She claims the seller lied about the condition of the properties, which she never saw before buying them.

. . .

Twidwell, who claims her intentions were pure, tells Fleming: "I know this all sounds ridiculous, and I sound like the stupidest person in the world."

Yes, she does sound stupid. Here's why: She bought five houses that were 2,500 miles away without seeing them first.

And I have no sympathy for her, especially when Twidwell complains that Pittsburgh code-enforcement officers are harassing her with citations.

"Harassment" doesn't describe what I wish would happen. I wish Twidwell could be forced to live in one of her crummy houses, like Joe Pesci in The Super, but the law doesn't allow that in real life, just in bad movies.

The Mon Valley was knocked into a deep hole 25 years ago. It's damned hard to crawl out when the Tami Twidwells of the world keep throwing dirt on our heads.

Posted at 8:06 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Commentary/Editorial | fourteen comments | Link To This Entry |

June 28, 2009

Time for a New Surgeon General's Warning

(Cartoons)

News Item: Residents of Clairton and Glassport are exposed to toxic air pollutants that make their risk of getting cancer around 20 times greater than the national average, according to a report by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. (Don Hopey, Post-Gazette)

Posted at 8:29 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Cartoons | No comments | Link To This Entry |

June 25, 2009

Disco for Young Lovers?

(Mon Valley Miscellany)

Legendary WMCK and WIXZ DJ Terry Lee has found another nugget in his archives and posted it online for your entertainment. It's video from a dance show taped in Pittsburgh in 1977.

A lot of the male dancers are sporting the look that retired Post-Gazette columnist Peter Leo called "the Full Cleveland" (and he meant that only in the pejorative sense), while the women are rocking those pantsuits and velour dresses.

Terry is a lot smoother than "Rockin'" Mel Slirrup (Eugene Levy), host of the SCTV dance show spoof "Mel's Rock Pile" ... but since Pittsburghers Joe and Paul Flaherty worked on SCTV, was any resemblance purely coincidental? Hmm.

(Update: Hey! I just noticed that Sunday was Joe Flaherty's birthday. He turned 68. In honor of Joe, I'm going to put on a white suit and a Panama hat, and sit in a wheelchair --- to earn people's respect, of course.)

Posted at 10:20 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: Mon Valley Miscellany | four comments | Link To This Entry |

June 24, 2009

Briefly Noted

(News)

An alert reader passed along this photo of a sinkhole in the parking lot of Norwin Hills Shopping Center on Route 30 near the Irwin exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

The photographer, who asked to remain anonymous, says the sinkhole was about 10 feet in diameter on Sunday. By Monday, when this photo was taken at the North Huntingdon Township shopping center, the cave-in was 20 feet wide and 45 deep.

Last week's heavy rains are being blamed for causing a pipe to collapse under the parking lot, opening the sinkhole, according to the Tribune-Review. The shopping center remains open.

(Tube City hard-hat tip to "DPBKMB.")

. . .

Preservation Effort Sought: McKeesport Heritage Center is in talks to create a permanent process for preserving and re-using historic buildings in the City of McKeesport.

The announcement was made Saturday afternoon following a presentation on McKeesport architecture by Heritage Center Executive Director Michelle Wardle and local photographer and historian John Barna.

About 60 people were in attendance.

Jason Togyer, a member of the board of directors, told the audience that the Heritage Center is in discussions to bring Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation into the city to salvage, restore and find new owners for commercial buildings in the Downtown business district.

The effort would be coordinated and done with the consent of elected and appointed officials, including the mayor's office, council, the Redevelopment Authority, McKeesport Housing Corp. and other city agencies, he said.

A meeting has been tentatively scheduled for mid-July between the affected parties, Togyer said.

For more details, see Michael Divittorio's story in Monday's Daily News.

Residents, business owners and others interested in receiving more information --- when it becomes available --- are asked to call McKeesport Heritage Center at (412) 678-1832, or email jtogyer@gmail.com.

. . .

Tax Rebate Deadline Extended: The deadline for senior citizens to claim a property tax or rent rebate has been extended from June 30 to Dec. 31.

The state-run program provides rebates on property taxes or rent paid in 2008 to lower-income residents who are 65 and older, or 50 and older and widowed.

Permanently disabled residents 18 years or older also qualify.

Income restrictions apply, and homeowners who make under $35,000 per year qualify for different levels of rebates. Renters must have incomes of less than $15,000.

Rebate checks will be mailed after July 1.

For more information, visit www.PaPropertyTaxRelief.com or call 1-888-222-9190.

. . .

Bill Would Extend Unemployment: A Mon-Yough legislator has introduced a bill to extend unemployment benefits in Pennsylvania by seven weeks.

The legislation proposed by state Rep. Marc Gergely, White Oak Democrat, would create a temporary trigger for extended benefits, which currently kick in when the so-called "insured unemployed" rate reaches five percent and is at least 20 percent higher than the total unemployment rate in the previous two years.

Those conditions were met in February, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry.

The so-called "insured unemployed" rate counts only those workers who have qualified for benefits, or not yet exhausted those benefits.

Under Gergely's bill, H.B. 1770, extended benefits would kick in whenever the total rate of unemployment reaches 8 percent statewide.

Extended benefits are usually paid 50 percent by the state, and 50 percent by the federal government.

But the federal stimulus package --- passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Obama earlier this year --- temporarily waived the state's 50 percent match and allowed them to tie their extended benefits to the total unemployment rate, rather than the insured rate.

Gergely said yesterday that nearly 60,000 people would benefit if the alternative, temporary trigger was approved. Pennsylvania residents would be eligible for up to 79 weeks of unemployment compensation.

As of today, 67 other legislators had added their names to the bill, including Mon-Yough area state Reps. Jim Casorio, D-Irwin; Bill Kortz, D-Dravosburg; and Ted Harhai, D-Monessen.

According to Gergely, acting chairman of the House Labor Relations Committee, 29 states have either changed their extended benefits rules already, or are close to doing so.

The legislation would be effective only while the federal stimulus money is available, he said.

(more)

Posted at 08:27 am by Staff and Wire Reports
Filed Under: News | one comment | Link To This Entry |

June 23, 2009

DEP Report: No Hazards in Lake Emilie

(News)

An "exhaustive" analysis by the state Department of Environmental Protection has found no chemicals, poisons or manmade contaminants in Renziehausen Park's Lake Emilie.

However, the 16-page report, released Tuesday, does indicate the presence of fecal contamination --- animal droppings --- in the lake, DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said.

That's very likely caused by the geese that inhabit the lake each spring and summer, Gresh said Tuesday, and is not a health hazard.

"It's about what we would expect for an urban pond," she said. "The fecal matter is definitely not the cause of the fish kills."

. . .

Lake Emilie's water quality became an issue several weeks ago after Councilman Paul Shelly Jr. reported he had found 75 fish dead at the man-made pond over the span of several days.

City officials said they had found only about a dozen, and speculated the fish were injured by rough handling during a fishing derby.

Shelly accused Mayor Jim Brewster and other administrators of covering up a public health hazard, and speculated sewage was getting into the lake.

. . .

Gresh said the fecal contamination is "not a high enough level" to kill fish.

DEP's tests, she said, cannot conclusively determine whether the contamination is from geese, human waste or pet droppings.

But she said the geese are a more obvious source than sewage runoff.

"We conducted an exhaustive amount of sampling," Gresh said. "It's most likely a result of having geese on the pond."

. . .

According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, fecal coliform bacteria are not harmful, but can indicate whether other harmful bacteria are present. Besides human and animal waste, coliforms are naturally present in the environment.

The DEP found 440 coliforms present per 100 milliliters of water in samples near Lake Emilie's spillway, and 1,200 coliforms per 100mL at the north end of the lake.

Federal and state guidelines consider average coliform levels above 126 units unsafe for swimming, according to public documents posted at the EPA's website, but swimming is not permitted at Lake Emilie, which is a stormwater retention area.

The same reports indicate that coliform levels below 2,000 units are safe for recreational uses other than swimming.

. . .

Persons who catch fish in Lake Emilie should wash their hands thoroughly, she said. Consuming fish from the lake is not unhealthy, Gresh said, as long as the fish are cleaned and cooked thoroughly.

In a statement emailed Tuesday to the Almanac and Daily News, Shelly said county and state agencies are not taking the issue seriously enough.

"I need more information on their data and opinions to form a strong opinion on the safety of the lake for humans and the cause of death of the catfish," he said.

. . .

Shelly added he had "bigger city and personal issues to deal with" --- a reference to his June 13 arrest on charges he pulled a gun on a Downtown business owner during a argument.

A preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Eugene Riazzi, originally scheduled for Monday, has been moved to 9 a.m. July 13. Shelly remains free on $10,000 bond.

Gresh said DEP did not attempt to determine the cause of death of the fish. Fish kills are the purview of the state Fish and Boat Commission, she said.

. . .

A message left for a spokesman at the Fish and Boat Commission was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Anyone who has concerns about the water quality of Lake Emilie can call the DEP's SouthWest Regional Office at (412) 442-4000, Gresh said.

"If people do find more dead fish, or if there is anything awry, we do want to hear about it," she said.

Posted at 7:05 pm by Jason Togyer
Filed Under: News | five comments | Link To This Entry |