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Officials, coordinator trade barbs
YOUNGSTOWN
The city’s housing deconstruction program will be dismantled in a few weeks, but not without shots fired by – and at – its coordinator.
Steve Novotny, hired almost a year ago to run that housing program, said Monday that the program would have been successful had he received support from city administrators and council members.
“It’s been an incredibly frustrating experience,” Novotny told The Vindicator after speaking about the program to members of city council Monday. “I don’t think [city council members] are interested. It’s my opinion they don’t want it to work.”
The city spent about $100,000 in federal money to deconstruct five houses and diverted at least 60 percent of materials from 26 other vacant homes from landfills. The goals were to deconstruct 15 houses and divert 50 percent of materials, Novotny said.
Deconstruction systematically takes apart a vacant house by removing portions of the structure, such as entire wooden floors or chunks of brick, rather than using a traditional wrecking ball.
Council members complained Monday, as they have for months, that deconstruction is twice as expensive as traditional demolition, and a market for the products saved from demolition hasn’t materialized.
“Experiments [such as deconstruction] don’t fall at the top of the priority list in [economic] times like these,” said Councilman DeMaine Kitchen, D-2nd.
The federal funding for the program — honored in September by the ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability, a national government climate-protection organization — ends Dec. 31.
That will be the end of the program, city officials say.
Council President Charles Sammarone said the city has to prioritize its finances for demolition.
Novotny said that there have been about 2,500 structures demolished in the city over the past five years and that hasn’t stabilized a single neighborhood in Youngstown.
Sammarone yelled to Novotny that his program sounds “great on paper” and “it’s easy to talk a game,” but a council member should never tell a resident that the city can’t save their neighborhood.
Sammarone, who said he was “mad” at Novotny, stormed out of the meeting.
Despite Novotny’s claims, Sammarone said he and other members of council initially supported the program.
In a telephone interview, Mayor Jay Williams criticized Novotny.
“Regarding his frustrations, perhaps he should look internally at his shortcomings and inability to work with others,” Williams said. “The real world is a bit more than Mr. Novotny realized. In his idealistic world, there’s a better way. The plan, meeting up with reality, has posed challenges.”
Williams called Novotny “one insignificant voice in this process.”
In response, Novotny said, “It’s obvious nobody at city hall wants to look at the program and make the hard decisions to target resources.”
Novotny had sent e-mails to Williams concerned about the possible misuse of federal funding to pay a company for asbestos abatement without proper documentation. The city’s law department is investigating, Williams said.
Novotny sent the information to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Ohio attorney general’s office via e-mail in November. As of Monday, he’s heard back from neither.
In an Oct. 8 e-mail to Novotny, who raised questions about the lack of documentation for demolition work, Williams wrote that either Novotny issue an apology to a city employee he criticized “or you can clean out your desk.” Novotny apologized.
“The mayor’s decision to threaten my contract after I raised legitimate and documented concerns over the actions of the demolition department because he felt that my tone was inappropriate shows just what his priorities are,” Novotny said Monday.