Who Ya Gonna Call?

In the beginning, it was all fun and games. I had a neighborhood full of firemen! For most women, that is exciting!


Now, however, we're back to reality and the buzz of firemen in firetrucks has worn off. Let's go back to the beginning of the story here.

We received a flier at home from Cuyahoga Community College that their live burn training was going to be conducted at the empty house across the street. The training was on May 6th, 9th and 10th. They warned of smoke in the neighborhood and advised everyone to keep their doors and windows closed.

My first thought was why was CUYAHOGA Community College coming to LORAIN that is in LORAIN County to burn down houses for their training. For real, like Cuyahoga County doesn't have any run down or empty houses of their own to burn down? Fine. Whatever.

It was fun for the three days to see all of these anxious young people, in full turn out gear, meeting up at the house at 7:00 in the morning! Too bad all of the fun stuff happened after I had to leave for work.

After the first day of training, here is what we had.



Now they are finished with their three days of training and here is what we are left with.




Hey, I am all about education and I realize that firefighters need to learn somewhere. I still don't understand why Cuyahoga Community College is coming to Lorain County to wreak their havoc though. I'm guessing someone is benefiting greatly financially. But, that is just my guess. I can tell you, it's NOT me.

I waited to see what would now happen to this house. And waited. And waited. I waited 30 days which I felt was a reasonable time to wait.

I started with a phone call to Ted Huffman, the Commander of Tri-C Fire Training Academy. Mr. Huffman was very pleasant, gave me some information like that this demolition is covered by federal grant money under the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund. That made me start to feel a little better since I couldn't imagine where Lorain was supposed to be coming up with the cash to tear this down now.

Mr. Huffman gave me the name and number to his second in charge, Dan Waitkus. My apologies to Mr. Waitkus because I did not write down his title so I will not attempt to guess at what it was. I will tell you that Mr. Waitkus was very pleasant and a wealth of information.

According to Mr. Waitkus, Lorain goes into the agreement with Tri-C then Tri-C takes on the financial responsibility of having the environmental study done on the property. This needs to be done prior to the burning but regardless of the burning, it would need done prior to the demolition of the house. I thought this house looked to be in pretty good shape so I am really surprised that it was slated for demolition. C'mon now, there are a ton of properties that are in MUCH worse shape that this one was. Mr. Waitkus agreed that the property was in very good shape and was also surprised that they got to burn this one.

So, there is a cost saving for the city of Lorain, not to have to pay for the environmental study on the properties. Then, the rest of the demolition would be covered by the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, which Mr. Waitkus thought Lorain already had the money for. Moving up the food chain, he gave me the name and number for Howard Goldberg with the Community Development department for the City of Lorain.

I will try to stick to the facts and leave out any personal thoughts or feelings on this guy.

I called and left him a detailed voice mail on 6/10/11 at 2:32 pm requesting he call me back with what the plans are to tear down this house.

I called and left him a detailed voice mail on 6/14/11 at 3:03 pm again requesting a call back with what the plans are to tear down this house.

I called and left him yet another detailed voice mail on 6/22/11 at 1:40 pm and this message he finally responded to.

Mr. Goldberg stated that my first two calls were not returned since I never left him my phone number. Really? I make calls for a living and I have a vested interest in hearing from you, so you don't think I would leave my phone number? Whatever.

Mr. Goldberg then stated that he does not have the funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, nor does he know when the government will be release the funds.

I asked him for the name of whom I should call to find out WHEN these funds will be released. Things kinda got a little nasty here. According to Mr. Goldberg, "there is no need to call any one". I asked him if I could quote him on that and he gave his permission.

No need to call anyone, huh?

So much for sticking to the facts, now I am going to get into the emotional he said/she said portion of this blog.

Mr. Goldberg told me that once the funds were released, then there would be three or four phases of bidding out the jobs to get the demolition done. So much for having the funds to do this. We started talking about WHY Lorain would allow Tri-C to come to MY neighborhood and do this - there had to be SOME financial settlement to SOME one to make this happen. Mr. Goldberg actually thought I would believe him when he said that there was NO money changing hands and actually Lorain was in the hole with this whole situation.

I brought up the fact that Tri-C was footing the bill for the environmental studies so right there was SOME financial gain for the city of Lorain. He at first claimed to not know anything about that, and then when I wouldn't let it drop, finally conceded that he would have to look into if THAT environmental study is good enough for the city to use before the actual demolition.

Mr. Goldberg was NOT happy to have to talk to me and answer my questions, even though he admitted that it was my RIGHT as a tax paying citizen to ask these questions and try to get some answers. Even if he thinks that the buck stops with him and that I do not need to call any one else to get this eye sore out of my neighborhood, I don't want to let it drop here. Mr. Goldberg told me that the demolition would happen but he wouldn't give me a date since if they missed that date, then I wouldn't be happy with that. So, I asked him for a ball park - 2012? 2013? He didn't see the humor in that but added that he thought this would be done by the end of 2011. I'll believe it when I see it.

All I can say is I don't believe many people do something for nothing. Especially a cash poor city like Lorain, out of the goodness of their hearts, to take on an additional financial burden so that Tri-C could train their students. Yeah, and I bet the Henderson-Loftin Bridge is for sale, too.

Granted this house was empty for awhile, but it looked to be in good shape. Why have it slated for demolition and used for burn training? Someone somewhere got something for this. I'm not saying that Mr. Goldberg profited from this personally, but I can't imagine that someone didn't profit on this. Otherwise, there was NO reason for Tri-C to come this far just to mess up my neighborhood more than it is already.

So, where do I go from here? Since Mr. Goldberg feels there is no need to call anyone else, perhaps we can all call him for updates on when the government is releasing the funds for the demolition of this eye sore.

Howard Goldberg, 440-204-2063 and the house address is 522 West 25th Street, Lorain.

And they wonder why people are leaving Lorain.