Warren official: Program could fix flooding woes

Salaries take the biggest chunk of the city’s
storm-water tax.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — Four years after a 10-year-old boy drowned on a city storm drain on University Street Northeast, a city official has proposed a program to solve flooding problems there and in five other areas of the city.

Tom Angelo, Warren water pollution control director, proposed to the sewer committee of Warren City Council recently that the city enact a 5-percent increase in the city’s storm-water utility fee to provide the money to build storm sewers and other devices to alleviate flooding.

Angelo said the timing of the move has nothing to do with the settlement of a lawsuit recently with the family of Johnny Keytack of Bonnie Brae Avenue Northeast.

Keytack’s father, John Keytack of Oswego, N.Y., settled out of court with the city for $500,000. Family members will split $326,949 after attorneys fees. John Keytack, administrator of his son’s estate, sued the city in 2004, after the boy got his foot stuck on a storm drain at the end of a ditch on University Street after a hard rain and drowned July 21, 2003.

Angelo said Keytack’s death brought attention to the neighborhood where the boy died, but it is not the reason why the neighborhood is ranked a priority for having sewer improvements made.

Angelo noted that nearby Irene Street has no storm sewers and is located just west of the Warren Plaza and Elm Road Drive-In Theater. The parking lots there cause a lot of rainwater to drain in the direction of University and Irene, Angelo said.

Angelo said he also considers the neighborhood to be a priority partially because so many residents there came forward after the storm July 21, 2003, to complain about flooding.

Among those still complaining is Mae Stark, who lives at the corner of Irene and University, Angelo said. The ditch where Keytack died is in her side yard.

Stark, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, says neighbors have complained about the flooding problems on Irene and University for many years, including before Keytack died.

The city did change the drainage ditch where Keytack died after the accident, installing a drainage pipe and covering it with soil and asphalt. But an open ditch is just across the street from the one Keytack died in, Stark said, and she continues to chase children out of it. She has called police and other city officials numerous times in recent years about kids playing in the ditch.

Stark and Angelo agree that nothing she or the city can do will prevent children from being injured when floodwaters come. Their advice is for parents to keep a close eye on their children so that they don’t get into dangerous situations.

Angelo also noted that floodwaters can contain all sorts of hazards, including septic waste from flooded septic systems and hazardous chemicals such as oils and paints that flood out of garages.

Angelo said it will probably take two to four weeks for his proposed storm-water fee increase to reach the full city council.

The increase would cost an average residential owner about 14 cents more per month. Homeowners currently pay a $2.92 per-month storm-water surcharge. Business customers pay either a flat fee of about $30 per month or more if they have larger parking areas.

The fees generate about $800,000 per year. Among the top expenses paid out with the money are storm sewer worker salaries of about $350,000 to $400,000 per year, vacuum truck rental of about $65,000, and storm sewer maintenance costs of about $100,000, Angelo said.

runyan@vindy.com