38 arsons ignite outrage

Community galvanizes to catch firebug, fight blight in the city

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

1Kids like to play in the vacant houses that aren’t boarded up, and their dilapidated squalor makes for a dangerous playground.

The houses have been attracting other visitors, too: Arsonists.

Thirty-eight vacant homes in New Castle, Pa., have been set on fire in the last 16 months. Fifty percent to 60 percent of those arsons were in the eight- to 10-block neighborhood called Courtside, which is behind the Lawrence County Government Center, said New Castle Fire Chief Tom Maciarello.

Five arsons in less than an hour and a half ripped through houses there in the early morning Nov. 8, and there were two between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. May 24. Those fires were on Court, Ray, Mulberry, and Chestnut streets and Crawford Avenue.

At the I-CARE House, a community center on Court Street, neighbors now meet to plan a battle against the arsons and the urban decay that’s run down their neighborhood.

But for a battle, they need an army.

They need people to point out those houses that aren’t boarded up, to attend and help lead their meetings and to hand out fliers. They need people to raise the alarm that blight is overshadowing what’s good about the city — and it will eventually creep through every neighborhood, not just theirs.

They need people to help them staff the patrols that now drive through Courtside in two overnight shifts — from 1 to 4 a.m. and 3 to 6 a.m. — to be on the lookout for arsonists.

The arsons May 24 galvanized city officials, said Maciarello, who contacted I-CARE to ask if he could speak to a neighborhood association that meets there. The neighborhood watch and patrols sprung from a meeting he attended June 4.

“We decided to be more aggressive. We set up an arson hot line, and put up a $1,000 reward. We set up a neighborhood crime watch,” Maciarello said.

The Rev. Ron Wanless, pastor of Croton United Methodist Church, and Laurie Emery and Tom Ford of I-CARE helped organize the watch. The June 4 meeting was packed, Emery said.

A meeting last week wasn’t as populous, but those who did attend are personally affected enough to feel the singe:

Sally Vernon lives on Court Street next to one of the houses that burned Nov. 8. Philip and Kayla Douglass and their infant son, Hunter, live four houses down from a half-standing burned out shell on South Ray Street.

Lorne Moskal of North Ray Street shared his memory of Nov. 8 — when he awoke at 3 a.m. to noise and “an orange light.”

“I woke up, and there were firemen and flames everywhere,” he said — the vacant house next door to his was blazing.

The group hopes to attract a crowd to its next meeting June 22, but a spur to action followed by a lull in interest has happened before.

The Nov. 8 arsons prompted an outcry. Then, attention waned until the May 24 blazes. Last week’s group, though small, remains determined.

They have a list of problem properties and gave it to Frank Tomski, a city code-enforcement officer who attended their meeting along with Maciarello.

They’re thinking about cleanup days. And they intend to complain to the city until something is done about the blight.

The city can only do so much, Tomski and Maciarello told The Vindicator, because it has obligations to property owners.SFlbMany of the properties are owned by out-of-town landlords who don’t even realize how run-down they are, said Tomski. Sometimes, contractors who are supposed to be rehabbing the houses rip owners off, he said.

Some of the houses are bank-owned, he said, and the banks won’t take responsibility for them because they don’t see foreclosures through to the end. The properties are left in limbo, he said, with former owners’ names still on the deeds.

It’s the county, not the city, that seizes and sells a house after property taxes aren’t paid for three years.

The city can demolish houses, but owners have to be notified, Tomski said. Sometimes, finding an owner through a title search can be difficult if paperwork wasn’t done right, he said. “You have to send registered mail to 15 previous owners.”

The city can take houses for demolition in emergency cases, he said. Most of the ones set for emergency demolition are burned out, he said.

In other cases, the city gives notice that a property owner has four months to repair a house, or it will be torn down, Tomski said.

Money is a problem. On average, Tomski said, the city has been budgeting $65,000 a year for demolitions, which can cost $5,000 for one house. Commercial properties can eat up most of the budget.

Caught among the lack of money, the red tape, the overgrown lots and the charred rubble are the residents of Courtside.

No one knows who’s torching houses there, said Maciarello.

Absent property owners might not even care.

But the neighbors want to send a message: We live here. Give us back our neighborhood.

starmack@vindy.com