`City takes swift action to secure Stacey home`

By Karen Coates
Herald Staff Writer

Motorists driving along East State Street near Baker Avenue Monday may have caught a glimpse of some construction workers boarding up windows and padlocking doors of one Hermitage home. The workers were securing the dilapidated house owned by the Stacey family at 1560 E. State by order of the city.

Limiting access, said City Manager Gary Hinkson, will decrease the likelihood of chidren or intruders getting hurt inside. Long term plans to fix the structure or demolish it are still up to the Hermitage’s five city commissioners to decide, he said.

“We are covering all the openings and padlocking the door,” Hinkson explained of Monday’s safety measures. “We don’t want anyone in there.”

The city took an aggressive stance to secure the home Friday after the Staceys did not set up a hearing before the Hermitage Board of Appeals to address the situation. Time expired to arrange that hearing Friday.

Hinkson said he did receive a letter Monday, however, requesting a hearing by homeowner Helen Stacey. The hearing she wants isn’t for the house, but for the three junked cars that remain resting on the Stacey property, he said.

“We gave them 10 days to have them (the junked cars) removed,” added Hinkson, referring to a city ordinance banning junked vehicles from sitting out in the open on private property. Today was the last day for the Staceys to respond, he said.

Hinkson said he was not sure what day a hearing will be scheduled to decide the fate of the cars. But according to a city ordinance, the hearing will have to be arranged sometime in the next 21 days.

For the past year, the city has been asking the Staceys to repair their dilapidated, uninhabitable home after a June 1997 rainstorm. City inspectors argued the foundation was beyond repair and unsafe. The Staceys have maintained the house was not dilapidated.

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Updated July 28, 1998
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