Mayor Clem Seifert’s Speak Up Henderson forums on Monday nights have been sparsely attended, but the Vance County Coalition Against Violence vowed Thursday to pack the next session to complain about Henderson’s priorities in its attack on abandoned buildings.
The Rogers Group’s Cliff Rogers, who led the weekly coalition meeting at the Gateway Center in the absence of Chairwoman Elnora O’Hara, asked for the coalition to rally behind him after he told of his frustration with a particular long-vacant house, 731 Flint St., across the street from Greater Little Zion Holy Church.
Rogers said he drove through Flint Hill about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, and he was forced to stop on Flint Street while one of at least five men operating out of the abandoned house conducted a drug deal with another vehicle. That business was conducted in the twilight while regular Wednesday services were going on inside the church.
“I have tried as an individual and as a businessman unsuccessfully to go to the city to ask them to do something about this vacant home because we manage other properties in the area, and this has proven to be a problem. I would like to ask the coalition to join me in approaching the city to go to Code Compliance and ask that something be done,” Rogers said. “As an individual, I’ve struck out.”
He said the coalition formed to have a louder voice than any individual, and now he needs that united voice.
“The cleanup committee has talked about cleaning up, and they’ve put a Code Compliance Department in, and we’ve got this home with no power, no plumbing, and people are camping out, and not just camping out, they’re selling drugs,” Rogers said.
He said tenants complained to him, and he complained to the city staff a year ago, “and absolutely nothing has been done.”
In an interview Friday, Code Compliance Director Corey Williams said he hasn’t had any complaints about 731 Flint St. in at least six months.
He said he has talked to the house’s owner, who agreed to secure the building and notify the police that no one should be there. Williams said the house was padlocked, but he hasn’t visited it in some time.
Rogers told the coalition he has talked to the out-of-town owner, who has said he intends to tear the house down. But Rogers is tired of waiting.
“I wanted to stop and go into the church and say, ‘Folks, we need some help,’ ” Rogers said. “I’m frustrated. I don’t know what to do. But somehow, what I saw is why we’re all here.”
He later added: “I feel like in Flint Hill, every time we take one step forward, we take another step back.”
Williams said that if he went after 731 Flint St., he’d have to go after much of Flint Hill, perhaps including the row of vacant, boarded-up rental houses the Rogers Group owns on Hillside Avenue.
“On this abandoned housing, how are our priorities being formed?” Rogers asked Thursday night.
Andrea Harris has the same question during the coalition meeting.
“We have more vacant houses on Rockspring Street than any other street in the city,” Harris said, but they sit abandoned for years and become drug houses and dumps.
City officials tell her the problem is money, Harris said. “That makes me feel bad … so my neighborhood isn’t important.”
She is angry that the city, led by Mayor Clem Seifert, has put a priority on demolishing the old South Henderson School on Old Epsom Road. Through deals with a salvage company and the private owner of the old school and its 2-acre lot, the city needs about $25,000 to clear the debris and purchase the fenced land for an undetermined purpose.
The City Council rebuffed Seifert when he asked council members to come up with the money, and he has asked members of Congress to earmark the funds, so far without success.
Harris said she can listen to gunshots every weekend, and “it doesn’t mean a thing, but you’ll go ask for the money” to tear down the school.
Harris: “When you sit in my face and tell me you don’t have enough money on one day to deal with these houses that have been abandoned for a long time, but on another day y’all are going to try to find the money for whatever the tipping fee might be for South Henderson School … it makes me feel undervalued.”
She added, “I don’t know how we choose.”
“I don’t either, and that’s one of the things that this coalition needs to take back to the city and get involved because we are directly talking about things that are important to our community,” Rogers said. “I feel like I’ve struck out individually.”
Cathy Ringley led the group in offering to back up Rogers and suggested using the Speak Up forum to raise complaints about priorities. The next forum is May 23 at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Building.
Rogers said he hopes the mayor will get City Council members and staffers at the forum once he knows a crowd will be coming. Attendance for anyone other than the mayor and his assistant, Sandra Wilkerson, is voluntary, and the sparse public turnout has reduced the number of council and staff members at the sessions.
“I’m asking for the coalition’s help to approach the city, and part of that needs to be approaching the cleanup committee, which I assume is assisting Code Compliance on which properties to remove,” Rogers said, adding that he also is in the dark about the selection process. “If you ask me whether or not I wanted to see a school come down on Old Epsom Road or take down five houses that people were selling drugs out of, I’d say the five houses where the people were selling drugs out of. … I don’t think that message has been conveyed.”
Williams said he’s not surprised that people who don’t live near the old school would rather knock down houses. But the city has neither spent nor committed money to the school property, so that project has not stopped houses from being demolished.
Facing roughly 200 abandoned houses and a budget that might cover 10 demolitions a year without reimbursements, Williams said he tries to hit the dilapidated houses in the worst condition in one neighborhood, then do the same in another neighborhood. He targets houses based on their condition and on the number of complaints.
The Clean Up Henderson Committee has documented the city’s abandoned houses and notifies Williams of any possible additions to the list, but the committee has no role in prioritizing the houses for action by the Code Compliance Department
Williams’ decisions often involve pragmatic considerations, he said. “The least resistance possible is what we try to do.”
That means looking for houses that have simple ownership, rather than the complications of scattered heirs sharing ownership. And, to stretch “a slim, slim budget,” it means targeting houses that will be the cheapest to demolish. Houses typically cost $2,000 to $5,000 to demolish, and the cost rises if asbestos is involved.
Williams has a list of 16 houses that are in the demolition pipeline. If the city can find the money, he hopes to tear them all down in the next few months. He said he has the next 10 houses waiting on his desk.