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Filmmaker turns camera on woes at trailer park
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Bob Heltzel is not one to turn a blind eye to problems in the area he calls home.
So when the Niles native and Hiram College graduate learned about the rapid deterioration of a Liberty trailer park, he grabbed a video camera.
Heltzel, 25, spent several months writing, filming, narrating and shooting “Ohio’s Inferno,” a documentary film about Vintage Village trailer park, off Belmont Avenue. The film was completed in October and can be viewed online for free.
In interviews with residents, police and health officials, he tells what happened. The park was safe and quiet as recently as 2003, when it logged 14 police calls for the entire year. But the number skyrocketed to 170 in 2004. That coincides with the purchase of the park by Ronald and Marsha Holley of the Akron area. Crime and blight continued to accelerate in ensuing years, as Heltzel illustrates with charts and interviews with Liberty Police Chief Richard Tisone. Police had to visit the park 433 times in 2009, and about 500 times in 2010.
Heltzel is the son of Trumbull County commissioner Paul Heltzel. In his film and in an interview with The Vindicator, he blames a lack of tenant screening for causing the park’s rapid downfall. He also suggests that the state and county bureaucracies that oversee trailer parks lack enforcement power.
Vintage Village became blighted as its tenant base changed, said Heltzel. The many elderly and low- income residents who lived there for many years lacked the money and means to move out.
The park’s woes have been documented in the local news media over the years, as residents held hearings to air their grievances, but its problems remain. The Holleys, who refused to be interviewed for the film, no longer own the park, which is beset by debt for septic repairs and tax bills. The Norton residents declared bankruptcy and the park is in receivership by SS&G Financial Services after an attempt to sell the park at auction failed to receive an acceptable bid.
Heltzel first learned of the troubled park in 2009, while he was an intern at the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve quality of life by mustering the power of citizens.
He borrowed a camera and rooted out the story, using the knowledge he gained from local filmmaker Jim Fogerty, who was one of his teachers at JFK High School in Warren. “Ohio’s Inferno” can be viewed online at infernonet.wordpress.com.
“What intrigued me about it is how a perfect storm of elements came together to destroy the place,” said Heltzel.
“Ohio’s Inferno” marked Heltzel’s directorial debut, but he is considering other topics for his next film, which will also be an investigative-journalism documentary.
“I like to protect my friends and take care of my home,” said Heltzel. “If it makes certain people angry when I point out their vices, they have to deal with it.”