Uniontown project criticized
The residents of Gallatin Avenue should wake up and take notice. Mark Yauger, of the Uniontown Redevelopment Authority, is ready to pop a cork in celebration of a $300,000 grant. This huge sum is to pay for three – count them – three – homes on Maple Street with more funds on the way to be siphoned into this money pit. Gallatin Avenue is suffering for want of an end to the rental units which harbor criminals and people who don’t know how to live among those who actually care about the appearance of their property. It’s about an end to tenants who don’t know what a trash can is and/or spend their lives within the drug culture.
I don’t pretend to know who is reaping the benefits from this project but I do know that funds meant for Gallatin Avenue’s restoration were diverted to the buyout of these Maple Street properties. We are still waiting for an audit and an account of how our funds were disbursed. These results should be made public.
According to the Herald-Standard article, Ed Fike, our mayor, has joined with Mr. Yauger in the promotion of $300,000 for three homes. We would have been better served by hiring a full-time code enforcement officer for our area, someone who would actually cite owners of derelict property for code violations and follow through in collecting the fines which would probably pay his next year’s salary.
When our grant came through, our association had high hopes of seeing more of these havens for criminals being torn down and eliminated. But it seems that most of this initial grant went to someone’s Maple Street project.
If our Elm Street manager is not striving toward the acquisition and demolition of neglected rental houses (I can’t call them homes) or the clean and green promise, he’s being paid for a job he isn’t doing.
Again, we’re spending $300,000 for three homes, with tax breaks, while the existing rental houses and their occupants have caused our property values to plummet.
An audit is in order to determine exactly how our funds were spent, and I urge the residents of the Gallatin Avenue area to join with me in expressing your views. Silence and resignation doesn’t get anything done. It’s like the old saying: “Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” Speak out – or accept what’s being done to us like the sheep they think we are.
If you feel you have been damaged by a rental property near you, if you feel that your quality of life has been diminished or if you feel that your property has lost its value, then please pick up a pen and write to the Herald-Standard or e-mail your complaint to the paper and ask where our restoration money is.
If enough of us speak out, perhaps our city will listen. If not, perhaps a class-action suit is in order.
Janet Lomax is a resident of Uniontown.