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Solution for site debated

By Angie Oravec 7 min read

MASONTOWN – Members of the Fayette County Housing Authority (FCHA), borough police and borough council met Thursday to discuss a solution to the high crime rate at Fort Mason Village. Borough police Chief Rich Barron said that 30 out of 100 units in the housing project are unoccupied and noted that there are about a dozen “bad apples” that are causing the majority of problems, including a stabbing, shooting, robbery, an arson that caused thousands of dollars of damage to the housing authority property and, just last Sunday, a man who fled with a sawed-off shotgun in hand after threatening to kill himself.

Borough police charged Tobias Mitchell, 24, of Adah with reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, simple assault and harassment after he exited Fort Mason Village Unit 68 with the gun to his chin, eventually leading police on a manhunt and forcing a helicopter search of the area.

“Something has to be done immediately to change the image of this place,” Barron said at the meeting held in the Fort Mason Village office. “I don’t know what the housing authority is going to do, but something has to change at this place.

“Business owners, civic leaders, residents: They want this place gone. They want this place empty. They’d rather have cows down here pasturing and that’s what it’s going to come to,” he added.

FCHA Executive Director Thomas Harkless said the problem is that the image is so bad that no one wants to live in the housing project.

“Either we need help from the borough to fill it with good people or we need to shut it down,” Harkless said.

At the words “shut it down,” applause erupted from Barron, Masontown Mayor Tom Loukota and a Masontown council member who did not want to be identified because of safety reasons.

“If it’s closed down, it’s closed down forever,” Harkless said.

“I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing,” replied Barron.

“I really do think this place is beyond being turned around,” added Loukota. “And it’s a shame because I do think everybody deserves clean, safe, affordable housing.”

Denny Barclay, FCHA director of operations, said the authority has done all they legally can to root out the bad seeds through the eviction process.

Tenants appeal evictions, he said.

“It hurts us more than anybody,” said Barclay. “We want a clean, safe community, but we have problems doing evictions.”

Harkless said the authority’s screening procedure requires a credit check and a criminal background check, which does not show arrests, only convictions.

“They could have been arrested 100 times and they could get past that part,” he said.

FCHA Board Chairman Angela M. Zimmerlink turned to the housing project manager DeDe Cole to hear about actual problems in the village and proposed solutions to those problems.

Cole said she’s still trying to find a solution.

“During the day, it’s quiet. There’s very little disturbance,” she said. “The problems that do happen occur after we’re gone.”

Cole reported that 12 tenants have been evicted from Fort Mason Village in the last year and two evictions are pending this year. She said the eviction process has begun on the tenant listed on the lease of Unit 68, in light of Sunday’s major incident.

“The laws need to be changed so we can get people out of here,” she said. “They should not be able to file an appeal. We are enforcing the lease.”

Barclay agreed, adding that it takes six to eight months to have an appeal cycle through the court.

“It’s considered garbage because they have to adjudicated,” he said.

He noted that the crux of the problem is getting people who have witnessed crimes to testify in court.

“But to wring your hands and say why they aren’t good citizens, I’m not about to attempt that,” he said.

Zimmerlink enforced the idea of holding the tenant whose name is on the lease responsible for any lease violations.

“The idea of warning and counseling them is out the window as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “Start evicting for those reasons.”

Cole said they’ve been doing that and “it doesn’t seem like it’s making a difference.”

Zimmerlink contended that the difference won’t be seen right away.

Despite the talk, the village’s situation appears direful.

Loukota said the housing authority took a $38,000 loss from lack of rentals last year.

Barclay said the housing authority cannot afford to continue to take a loss.

“It may shut itself down,” he said referring to the village.

“If things don’t change, either the housing authority will close it down or HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) will close it down and then you’ll have 70 homeless families in Masontown,” Barclay added. Harkless said the families would be placed somewhere else.

Barron said borough police responded to 331 calls to the village in 2005 and 321 in 2004. He added that 24 burglaries occurred last year, noting there’s not that many that occurs in town.

“(Fort Mason Village is) only 5 percent of the town. Why are there that many calls there?” he said. “Some residents (of Fort Mason Village) are leaving because of it. They’re saying, ‘My house is burglarized, I’m out of here.'”

Nearly a handful of people are in jail from crimes committed, he said.

Vandalism is also a major problem, said Barron and Cole.

Masontown Police Officer Joe Ryan said he oftentimes responds to calls at the housing project alone.

“This is a completely different place when the sun goes down,” he said. “The outsiders are coming in and visiting the residents that are coming out of their houses.”

Ryan recalled a fight he recently responded to on Elmer Street, located near Fort Mason Village. He said 150 people were on the street fighting. He couldn’t turn away. He had already rounded the corner.

“I called for help, lit the car up, some dispersed, we had one stabbed,” he said, adding four or five people involved in the disturbance were connected to the village either as a visitor or tenant.

Ryan said when two officers were on duty and available to respond to the housing project together, things could be controlled. But the borough is under financial strain and can’t afford to do that, he said.

“With more of a police presence, we had absolute control of this place,” Ryan said. He added that state narcotics agents are not willing to help with drug investigations unless a minimum of two officers are on the street. In October, an agent assisting with an investigation in Fort Mason Village was dragged 700 feet down the street.

Barron said when a security guard was stationed in the village about four years ago, the calls decreased significantly and the borough police department had control of the situation. Since then, funding for that service has dried up, he said.

The police department also expends numerous dollars on providing “above baseline services” at the village, Barron said. In Sunday’s incident alone, the department spent $467.50 for hours of work, he added.

Loukota, along with Barron and other members of council, have taken their request for funding before the housing authority several times within the last year, but have not received the portion of funds they say reimburses the borough for months of above baseline services.

“We’ve provided above baseline services at the expense of the taxpayers of this town and we’re just asking you to fill the gap,” Loukota said.

Loukota said during the last elections, there were residents of the town who did not vote because Fort Mason Village was their polling place.

“People are afraid to come here and vote,” he said. “I immediately want to eliminate this as a polling place.”

Zimmerlink said that she received phone calls requesting that the housing project not be used as a precinct.

Barron repeated his starting statements at the conclusion of the meeting, presenting the board with the three options he sees viable: to change the housing project’s image, to turn it into a senior citizens housing development or to shut it down.

“There are some good people who live here, but eventually they are going to go, too,” he said.

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