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Program cracks down on eyesore homes
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SLUM BUSTER: Warren Police Detective Patrick Marsico has focused his energy since November on charging the owners of Warren condemned homes with a criminal offense for failing to demolish or repair the homes. Marsico stands in the rear yard of a condemned home on Haymaker Avenue Northwest, a street hit hard by local housing and economic conditions. The house is missing much of its aluminum siding, has broken windows, trash and even missing cement blocks.
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George Kafantaris
By Ed Runyan
A Weathersfield man could face a possible four-year jail sentence if he’s found guilty.
WARREN — “These are all condemned. I just haven’t gotten to them yet,” said Detective Patrick Marsico of the Warren Police Department, as he drove his unmarked police car down Haymaker Avenue Northwest to show one of the city’s bigger problem neighborhoods.
Marsico is trying to reduce Warren’s high number of condemned homes. Specifically, the problem is the homeowners who have refused to follow the order of the city health department to demolish the structures.
The city has taken a number of approaches to the problem in the past, but since November it has focused its resources on a relatively new one: Marsico.
The former patrolman was put in charge of Warren’s environmental enforcement about 18 months ago when the Geauga-Trumbull Solid Waste Management District funded his position with a $67,000-per-year grant. The money comes from a 2006 increase in garbage-truck fees paid by waste haulers.
Marsico has been working on a variety of environmental issues for the police department since 2007, but this fall, the city agreed to ramp up efforts to hold accountable the owners of condemned properties.
The health department turned over to Marsico a list of 186 homes that it condemned. All were notified of the violation and given time to demolish or clean up the property.
So far, Marsico has worked on 28 of the cases and filed charges on 17 of them. One of the charges is against suspended Warren attorney George Kafantaris, who has pleaded innocent to violating an order of the health department. He appears in Warren Municipal Court on Jan. 14 before Judge Thomas Gysegem.
Kafantaris is accused of failing to clean up the exterior and yard of a rental property he owns on Atlantic Street Northwest.
If convicted, Kafantaris faces a fine of up to $100. On a second offense, he could also face up to 90 days in jail.
Marsico said he has assurances from Judge Gysegem that the judge is taking the case seriously, even though it is the first time a case of this type has been brought to the court.
The city has demolished 125 condemned homes over the past 18 months and recently ordered another 20 to be razed over the next couple of months, Mayor Michael O’Brien said. But that process can cost the city a couple of thousand dollars each, Marsico said.
O’Brien said the foreclosure crisis has caused a lot of homeowners to walk away from their homes, which has a detrimental effect on the surrounding neighborhood. Vandalism, theft and other problems are common.
Janet Armistead, who lives on Haymaker, said she attributes most of the recent problems on her street to unsupervised juveniles who recently moved away and to few owner-occupied homes.
Armistead said she believes only about three of the about 30 homes on the street are owner-occupied, including hers. She estimates that at least five of the 30 are condemned.
Marsico said he’s learned that in many cases, the abandoned homes in Warren are owned by out-of-state investors who bought them for several thousand dollars on the Internet without ever having seen them.
“If you have received a notice that the property has been condemned and an order to demolish has been issued, and you have not complied, the city’s environmental division will be filing charges against you,” Marsico said.
“We’re starting to see results of our program,” said Robert Villers, executive director of the solid waste district. “If the word gets out, hopefully some of these homeowners will come into compliance.”
Deputy Harold Firster of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department, whose pay also comes from a solid waste district grant, began his work at the same time as Marsico.
Firster recently obtained an indictment against a 56-year-old Weathersfield man — Felix A. Barrios — on a felony charge of open dumping because Barrios is alleged to have failed to clean up his property on Trumbull Avenue.
Firster said Barrios collects a great deal of trash in a dump truck and keeps it on his property. Barrios also has refused to clean it up after being notified of the violation, Firster said. Firster got involved after the Weathersfield Township zoning inspector referred the matter to him.
If convicted on the offense, Barrios faces up to four years in jail and a fine up to $25,000.
Barrios pleaded innocent in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and was released on a $2,500 bond. He has a pretrial hearing before Judge John M. Stuard on Monday.
O’Brien said the city should have additional resources soon to attack the problem of vacant and condemned homes.
The city expects to receive about $1.8 million from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, a $3.9 billion program Congress approved as part of the recent federal bank bailout. The money will be for cities to acquire, rehabilitate and demolish certain kinds of housing. Youngstown was awarded $2.7 million.
runyan@vindy.com