TRUMBULL COUNTY City officials seek ideas for cleaning up Warren

There are more than 2,000 vacant homes in the city, 2000 Census figures show.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A team of council committee chairmen and two department heads will brainstorm to devise ways to clean up the city.
Council President Robert A. Marchese said the chairmen of council's engineering, planning and building; community development; image; and health and welfare committees have been appointed point people to work with Michael D. Keys, community development director, and Robert Pinti, deputy health commissioner.
"We need to try to come up ideas to get the citizens involved with cleanup with things they can do easily," Marchese said. "With the four of them working with the department heads, hopefully they can come up with a starting point."
One approach is to identify a particular area of the city and concentrate on it, Marchese said. Councilman Alford L. Novak, D-2nd, chairman of the engineering, planning and building committee, said that approach has been effective in targeting city problems in years past.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are more than 2,000 vacant homes in the city, with the sixth ward, the city's southwest side, having the most with 419.
"We need to create a demand in the city for the housing," said Keys. "That's not an easy thing to do. It's an economic thing."
Code enforcement
Councilman John Homlitas, D-3rd, chairman of the image committee, views code enforcement throughout the city as a short-term and a long-term goal.
"There are two kinds of landlords," Homlitas said. "There are those who take pride in their property and take care of it and there are those who do not. Those who take pride in their property are not the problem."
For years, council members have decried the high number of vacant structures and the length of the city's demolition list.
Keys said about $100,000 is allocated annually to building demolition from community development dollars. At a cost of about $3,000 per house, that amounts to about 30 demolitions per year.
Some officials have previously advocated enacting legislation to make it a criminal offense for a building owner not to comply with a demolition. Under current policy, if an owner doesn't comply, the city demolished the house and the cost is added to the owner's property taxes.
Councilman Gary Fonce, D-at large, chairs the community development committee. James A. "Doc" Pugh, D-6th, chairs health and welfare.
denise_dick@vindy.com