Awaiting improvements

Outhouses are still in use, but bringing sewer linesin is beyond the scopeof the proposal.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
HOWLAND -- Ditches filled with stagnant water and fast-food wrappers line many of the narrow streets in the Bolindale neighborhood of Howland Township, a less than square-mile area considered by planners to be one of the poorest in Trumbull County.
But residents of the most blighted part of Bolindale, east of the Mahoning River ringed by scrap yards and industry, say they like their neighborhood and many are skeptical of the township and county's plan for change.
Within two weeks, county officials hope to learn if they will get a $300,000 state grant to widen some roads and install streetlights in Bolindale, which straddles state Route 169 just south of the Warren city limits.
The state grant would be supplemented with $137,000 from Howland Township and $165,000 in grants from other sources, said Alan Knapp, assistant director of the Trumbull County Planning Commission.
"The whole area is blighted," Knapp said. "The houses are older, the streets are older and it still doesn't have all the infrastructure it really needs."
Bolindale, named for early landowners James and John Bolin, was the site of the first log cabin in Howland Township in 1799. Residents say many of the homes were constructed in the 1950s to house the families of workers at nearby mills.
What's planned: If the $300,000 grant is approved, improvements would likely include laying a waterline along Bolin Avenue, replacing open ditches with storm sewers along 10 streets, widening and resurfacing five others and installing street lights over the entire area, Knapp said.
"Anything to do with the roads, I'm for it," said Duane Dukes, a 31-year-old construction worker with five earrings and hair in tight braids.
He also liked the idea of street lights.
"There are strange animals up here," said Dukes, who was spending a recent afternoon working on a car in his Bolin Avenue driveway.
The planning commission is aware of reports of rats and packs of wild dogs in the neighborhood, and Dukes said he has seen a strange creature with an otter-like tail near a boarded house up the street.
"We definitely need some lights up this way," he said.
The roads in Bolindale are paved and in good shape, but very narrow. A few are only 15 feet wide -- too narrow for cars and large vehicles like school buses and garbage trucks to pass each other, some residents say.
Opposition: Others are against widening the roads, because they say they don't want any additional traffic.
He did favor street lights, however, an idea Charles Hartle, 21, opposed.
"Personally, I like it dark out here," he said, standing outside his grandmother's concrete-block house. "It has the authenticity of an older township."
Sewers: At public hearings to discuss the proposed Bolindale project, the big demand was obviously for sanitary sewers, said township Trustee Richard G. Clark.
Although the county brought water lines to Bolindale in the 1980s, most of the area still has no sewer service.
Failing septic systems contribute to the stench from some roadside ditches.
While sewers are a pressing need in Bolindale, the planning commission's Knapp said the county must first take care of sewage problems in the dozen or so other areas it is under EPA order to fix.
The planning commission estimates that laying sewers in Bolindale would cost $1 million.
In 1985 and 1986, the county demolished between 20 and 30 homes in Bolindale and renovated another 20 or 30, as part of a project funded by the Ohio Department of Development.
About one-third of the 1,941 people in Bolindale live below the poverty level.
Another idea: William Kelley, 25, a cousin of Charles Hartle, said he felt the development money would be better spent fixing the houses of people who live in the area.
His grandmother's home on Broadway still doesn't have indoor plumbing. To this day the woman in her 50s walks across the grass to use an outhouse in the back.
"I'd like to see them use the money to help senior citizens," Kelley said.
siff@vindy.com