TRUMBULL COUNTY Storage building in disrepair

The county will sell by Internet auction 16 of the 40 vehicles on the property.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Across a parking lot from Warren Harding High School, a collection of junk cars rusts behind a weed-entangled fence.
Weeds sprout through the hood of one car. Another is propped on hubcaps, a transmission sitting in the open trunk. Behind them, light streams through linebacker-sized holes in the roof of a decaying garage.
The messy area is called Panther, the Trumbull County-owned collection of buildings on Elm Road Northeast, home to intact buildings for the county sheriff's road deputies and the vehicle maintenance department.
"It is getting to look like a junkyard," said Commissioner Dan Polivka, during a tour of the property.
County commissioners are preparing to sell by Internet auction 16 of the nearly 40 vehicles that have accumulated on the property. He said that he planned to ask the maintenance department to evaluate whether it would be more cost-effective to demolish or fix the storage building.
"It is dangerous," he said. "We have to do something in the next month or two."
The holes in the roof developed over years, officials said.
"We kind of let it go due to budget cuts and stuff," said Al DeVengencie, county maintenance supervisor.
Collection of items
Inside the building, several cars sit under thick coats of dust and debris from the collapsing roof. There are also a half-dozen all-terrain vehicles, old exercise equipment and furniture, and a boat that was used on the now-discontinued Mosquito Lake patrols.
Polivka said he also wants to sell the boat. A mobile office trailer should also be sold, he said, and a burnt-out wreck of a car in one corner of the lot could be dumped for scrap.
"It isn't doing anybody any good rusting away here," he said.
The county does occasionally sell off vehicles retired from the county fleet or acquired in drug busts. The last sale was in November.
Retired county vehicles are not sold off more quickly because staff shortages give employees little time to take care of that task, said county administrator Tony Carson. Other vehicles are still in county hands because the county has not obtained a clear title, which is necessary before they can be sold.
Evaluating buildings
Carson said the county is in the process of evaluating which buildings are most in need of repair. He pointed out that work is under way to remove mold from the health department building and to renovate the Stone Building. New carpets are also being bought for the county juvenile justice center.
"We need to keep the buildings up to be a good landlord," Carson added. "We want to keep the buildings up; you keep the appearance nice, keep them safe for the employees."