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Order bars city from tearing down house on Rush Boulevard
STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN
A judge has issued a temporary restraining order barring the city from demolishing or damaging a house at 2822 Rush Blvd.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court issued the order Friday and set a hearing on the property owner’s request for a preliminary injunction for 1:30 p.m. May 25 before Magistrate Timothy G. Welsh.
John Skarada, the home’s owner and occupant, and Raul Magallon of Clarencedale Avenue, who has a contract to remodel the house, sought and received the order in conjunction with a lawsuit they filed against the city, its building inspectors, Anthony DeNicholas Jr. and Monte Campbell, and the city’s engineering firm, Howland Co. LLC of Youngstown.
The lawsuit, which demands a jury trial and seeks damages in excess of $25,000, alleges that the building inspectors wrongly declared the house unsafe and demanded in July 2009 that the owner repair or demolish it within 30 days, or the city would order it demolished.
Representatives of the engineering firm entered the residence without the owner’s permission but with the city’s authorization and damaged the house between Dec. 22, 2009, and Jan. 2, 2010, the lawsuit says.
City Law Director Iris Torres Guglucello said the city would defend itself against the lawsuit, but she declined to comment further because she said she was not sufficiently familiar with this case.