The Life and Death of a Factory

Waterbury has lost another historic factory building to catastrophic fire. The building most recently known as Ansonia Copper and Brass caught fire on July 30, 2018. The dramatic fire was covered by all of the area news media.

WTNH Channel 8 coverage of the factory fire, July 31, 2018

Amazingly, the fire was contained to just one building. Sadly, it was the oldest and most beautiful building in a sprawling complex of historic factory buildings, with a rich history that made it worth preserving.

Community Cleanup at Scovill Homes

There are people who sit around complaining about problems, and then there are people who dive right in and solve the problems. Today was a good day for the problem-solvers in the Scovill Row Homes.

Sidewalks: Problems and Solutions

This is the post I was intending to write before my attention was necessarily focused on the extremely dangerous gang problem happening in my neighborhood.

First, a brief explanation for the handful of people who don't understand the importance of sidewalks. Sidewalks are a vital component of city life. Out in the suburbs, most people drive to wherever they are going. In the city, even a small city like Waterbury, most people walk. We walk to the park, to the playground, to the bus stop, to school, to the store, to a friend's house. On most Waterbury roads, no matter what the speed limit might be, cars typically go at least 40 mph, often faster. Sidewalks reduce the amount of stress pedestrians have when they are trying to get somewhere. Sidewalks keep pedestrians safe.

Sidewalks aren't just about safety. Studies have shown that pedestrian-friendly cities are healthier, have lower crime rates, increased pride, and are more likely to see higher income residents move in.

Finally!

After many years of complaints from the WOW neighborhood, the abandoned, blighted building at the corner of Wood and Walnut Streets has finally been torn down!

Before (2009)

After (earlier today)

The first time I wrote about this building was in 2009. I was appalled that this was a school bus stop. What clearer symbol of an uncaring city government could there be than requiring elementary school children to wait for the bus next to a building that looked like it was about to collapse on them? 

I wrote about it again in 2011. Then-Mayor Jarjura had attended a WOW community meeting and had promised to tear down both of the buildings at the corner of Wood and Walnut Streets. Only one of the two buildings was torn down. The one at the bus stop, the one blocking drivers' view of traffic, was left standing.

Now, finally, the problem building is gone. Thank you to whoever authorized its demolition!

Of course, the question remains: what comes next? Will the lot remain empty and abandoned? If a new building is constructed at the site, will it be set back from the road, or will the builders use the same footprint? I certainly hope not. In a residential neighborhood, even in a small city like Waterbury, buildings that are constructed right up against the street, leaving barely enough room for a sidewalk, are a bad idea.

There are two pre-fab duplex houses being built by WDC at the same intersection, diagonally across from the blighted building that was just torn down. They're set back from the road, surrounded by enough yard to make them feel comfortable, not packed in tight like sardines. Even buildings need elbow room.

Tearing Down Blight

As much as I love old houses and historic preservation, sometimes tearing down blighted buildings needs to be done. It's best as a last resort, when all other avenues have been tried. In some cases, it's also a good way to improve a row of houses. Many streets in Waterbury have triple-deckers that were built so close to one another, you can barely walk between them. Strategic removal can help a street to "breathe" and can make more off-street parking or outdoor living possible.

168 Wood Street started life as a beautiful triple-decker. Great details to the woodwork, classic proportions, good design. Unfortunately, it was abandoned a long time ago, probably several decades ago. By 2006, it had become not only an eyesore, but a magnet for garbage, drug dealing, and worse. At least one murder was committed in the abandoned house, in 2006. Despite repeated community efforts to clean up the property, it has continued to accumulate trash, litter, and drug dealing. Meanwhile, other triple deckers on that part of the street are well-maintained, but the owners of those buildings struggle to find good tenants, thanks to their proximity to 168 Wood Street.

168 Wood Street in October 2007

In January, Waterbury Development Corporation put the demolition of the property out to bid. Today, the house was torn down.

Hopefully something good will come of this. Dividing the empty lot in half, increasing the yard space for the houses on either side, might work well. Both properties gain more land, and no one can fill the lot back up with another cramped building.

The remains of 168 Wood Street.

Landlords vs. Tenants

I've been waiting months for the new laws regarding blighted rental properties to take effect. Connecticut's new law (Sections 3 and 4 of HB 5319) became effective on October 1 and imposes harsher fines for landlords who refuse to clean up their properties, and places liens on the properties. It also establishes willful violation of blight regulations as a misdemeanor criminal offense. This is the part I like best--a slumlord who lives in Stamford and refuses to clean up his rental property in Waterbury can be forced to come here to be held accountable. Before this legislation, nothing could be done about that Stamford-based slumlord.

Today's Rep-Am had a very disheartening article related to this topic. Each municipality with an existing blight ordinance is required to update it to reflect the new laws. Waterbury's Board of Aldermen are dragging their heels on this, after being told by landlords that they shouldn't be held accountable for the messes created by their tenants.

There has been a growing tension between landlords and tenants in recent years. As cities have grown tougher on blight, landlords have begun fighting anti-blight ordinances.

Before any landlords get upset at what I'm writing, let me say that I know what they are talking about. I know there are bad tenants out there. I know there are tenants who will trash the apartment, rip out copper pipes, smash holes in the walls and doors, leave a foot-thick layer of dog feces and urine in the basement, pull ceiling fans out of the ceiling and claim it fell on them and injured them. I know there are tenants who leave behind furniture, clothing, garbage. I also know that in every case I know of a tenant trashing an apartment, the landlord never did any sort of background check before renting to them. I hope all landlords at least require a security deposit to pay for the cleanup. That's what a security deposit is for.

Landlords: if you know your tenant is trashing your property, if you are there regularly to clean up after them, REPORT THEM. Don't sit back and wait for the city to come after you. Be pro-active. If your property is blighted enough for the city to get involved, you should have done something about it long before the city noticed. If your tenant is creating blight on your property, call the Police Department at 203-574-6920 and ask for the Blight Enforcement & Control Division. If your tenant trashes your property and you don't take action, then you should expect to be held responsible.

My interpretation of the new state ordinance is that it is intended to target slumlords. "Willful violation" of anti-blight laws is very different from landlords who need help with bad tenants, with illegal dumping on their property, with lack of resources. The law is intended to target the landlords who just don't care.

Take, for example, the owner of 76 Oak Street. The property has fallen into a blighted state over the past five years, after having been acquired by someone in Stamford in 2006. I have been complaining about the blight for years, but because the owner is out of town, the city hasn't been able to do much.

This summer, a new tenant moved in and made an agreement with the landlord to clean up the property. The tenant came in with a machete, a weed whacker, and some friends and made huge progress in clearing out overgrown weeds and trees that had grown up through the fence and were leaning precariously over my garage. The next step was to haul away the mountain of debris that fills up a quarter of the back yard. The landlord suddenly reneged on his promise to pay the tenant for the labor and the cost of removing the debris. The tenant can't afford to haul away the debris on his own, so all cleanup work stopped. The tenant has also complained to the landlord about the tree branch that has fallen on the roof and appears to be causing the roof to leak, which in turn appears to have caused part of the second floor to collapse. The landlord refuses to do anything about the leaking roof.

There are a lot of bad landlords in my neighborhood. One neighbor has told us that the heat duct no longer goes to the second floor, and her landlord refuses to fix it. The neighbor also says that the landlord has threatened them with eviction if they complain to HUD.

One of the houses across the street has been owned by Abreu Realty since 2007. Until a few weeks ago, there was a massive dead tree in the front yard that made everyone nervous, wondering if someone would be killed by a falling branch. The landlord refused to get rid of the tree, saying it wasn't his responsibility. It took a lot of pressure, but the tree is now gone. Meanwhile, however, take a look at the some of rest of the property:

254 Wood Street

The gutter on the porch has foot-tall grass growing in it (or did before the cold weather started). The porch slats are broken and have been for years. The porch steps are slick with mold. What kind of tenant does the landlord think he will attract when the property looks like this? Why would a tenant care about keeping the property clean when the landlord clearly does not care about how it looks?

We absolutely need to have an ordinance making blight a criminal offense. I have seen first hand that the city can't enforce anti-blight laws if there are no real penalties involved. There are too many landlords that just don't care.

Earth Day Cleanup at WOW and Scovill Homes

Another year, another cleanup. This year we started at Carpmill, went down Wood Street to Walnut, then split into two groups and went up Ives and Irion.

Starting out on Wood Street, raking up debris blocking a storm drain.

Youths from the WOW Community Learning Center, always willing to help out.

Raking and sweeping on Wood Street with Alderman Hadley.

Two years ago, Patricia Sockwell and I tackled the area between Wood and Ives Streets
on our own for Earth Day cleanup. So nice to be working with a large team now!

Our Community Officer, Andrew Abney, helped with the clean up.

Cleaning up litter at the bus stop. Yes, that's a school bus stop as well as a public bus stop.

I'm not sure how many bags we filled. Definitely a lot!

Tackling both sides of Walnut Street, and loading up the full bags on a trailer.

The man with the broom lives on the corner of Walnut and Ives Streets. He came out to help
when he saw us. As with so many people, he does what he can to keep his area clean,
but feels frustrated because his neighbors don't do their part.

Around 10:30, our crew met up with the PAL/North End Area crew.

We already had Walnut, so they went down Locust Street.

Our youngest volunteer. I think the gloves were a little big for her.

We could have had a tag sale with some of what we found on Irion Street.

The Ives Street cleanup crew at the end of the morning's work.

Frankies! Everyone who participated in the cleanup got a free hot dog, chips, and soda.

Sharing stories, eating dogs.

Taking a Bite Out of Blight

Educating youth is a big part of Mayor O'Leary's anti-blight plan. Following the example set by PAL, in which children began taking pride in picking up litter instead of just walking past it, the Blight Task Force held an Anti-Blight and Litter Slogan Contest in February.

The winners of the contest were announced and the new slogan and logo were unveiled last week:

Mosies Vega, Rotella Magnet School, Grade 5 - Slogan Contest Winner

Fatime Kaliki, Wallace Middle School, Grade 6 - Slogan Contest Finalist

Katherine Abreu, Crosby High School, Grade 10 - Slogan Contest Finalist

Tye Proctor, Crosby High School, Grade 12 - Logo Design Winner

Photo from Mayor O'Leary's Facebook page.

The slogan and logo will be used in school literature, on posters, t-shirts, bumper stickers, billboards, and city buses.

This is an important step in creating a culture of cleanness. Our city's children are growing up surrounded by blight and litter. Picking up litter is not instinctive. By teaching our children that it's not okay to ignore litter, that keeping things clean is a good thing, they will be less likely to litter, and our city's future will be a little brighter.

The Never-Ending Blight Next Door

The saga of blight at 76 Oak Street continues...

Two weeks ago, we saw a man walk to the back of the property next door. He looked at the mess with dismay. The property owner has hired him to be the property manager. In addition to cleaning up the yard, he has to evict the third floor tenant.

While I'm glad that the owner has hired someone to manage the property, I'm impatient in waiting for results. So far, the only change is that the mess has gotten worse. Most noticeable was the addition of a dozen or so oranges to the pile a few days after the property manager stopped by, as well as less visible garbage.

Meanwhile, the Connecticut Legislature is considering toughening the laws on blight, raising the fines from "not less than ten or more than one hundred dollars for each day" to

"(I) For the period from the first day to the thirtieth day during which such violation exists, one hundred dollars for each day that such violation continues; (II) for the period from the thirty-first day to the sixtieth day during which such violation exists, two hundred fifty dollars for each day that such violation continues; and (III) for the period from the sixty-first day to the day the violation is corrected, five hundred dollars for each day that such violation continues..."

The proposed bill is online at www.cga.ct.gov/2012/TOB/H/2012HB-05319-R00-HB.htm

Mile Long No More

Driving down Thomaston Avenue yesterday, I had to stop and take photos. The old Chase Metal Works is disappearing rapidly.

 

The Metal Works factory complex was built starting in 1910 (expansion was constant for years, partly because the company's production increased during World War I). The entire Chase complex of buildings sprawled over 211 acres in two towns. The bed of the Naugatuck River was re-routed to make room for the factory. By the 1940s, the plant was nearly a mile long, rivaling Scovill’s mile-long mill (now the Brass Mill Mall).

A portion of Chase Metal Works in the 1930s.
The section currently being torn down is in the upper center and right of center in this photo.
(Collection of Mattatuck Museum)

 
Roger Freeman, MIT graduate, was the construction engineer for the Chase Companies. He put together a construction team of about a dozen assistant engineers and four hundred laborers. The engineers included another six graduates of MIT; the others were from Dartmouth, Rensselaer and Yale. In a report to his alumni newsletter, Freeman reported that they designed and built reinforced concrete and structural steel factory buildings for the Metal Works and for Chase Rolling Mills and Waterbury Manufacturing  over two years’ time during WWI. The last concrete building was a six-story flat slab structure, 200 feet by 60 feet, constructed at a pace of six days per floor.  

The factory building with the sawtooth roof was constructed in 1916 and was considered very modern at the time. It was a challenge for the Metal Works’ Chief Engineer, John E. Williams, to heat the building. He wrote in 1928 that “the amount of glass used in its roof of modern saw-tooth construction and its huge rooms, make the heating a serious question for consideration by the modern engineer.” He solved the problem by installing a then-unique heating system connecting over 78 miles of hot water pipe directly onto the condensers in the power house.

In October 1915, Chase Metal Works reported that they had begun work on several additions to its facilities: a one-story brick and steel factory building, 140 x 180 feet; three two-story additions, 60 x 260 feet, 60 x 320 feet, and 60 x 120 feet; two two-story brick additions, 60 x 160 feet and 60 x 200 feet; and two other additions, 60 x 80 feet and 60 x 120 feet.

Seeing it being torn down, I felt like it was the end of an era. But what era? Chase shut down the Metal Works factory in 1976. The only thing ending now is the era of abandoned factory buildings. However, without those visual relics, the past will seem more distant and unrelated to our present.

Blight Meeting

Things are heating up!  The Mayor convened a public meeting last night at Walsh School to share with area residents the new anti-blight and litter initiative he has launched. It was the best-attended event in the WOW neighborhood in a long time. The Walsh gym was packed. There were, of course, city officials and several community activists present, but they were far outnumbered by neighborhood residents. There was a buzz of excitement and a renewal of hope.

The format was largely one in which the different city departments involved in the new anti-blight initiative explained what they are doing. Although one audience member later accused them of merely patting themselves on the back, they really were reporting to the public and much of what they had to say was very warmly received.

As the Mayor pointed out, he has been in office for less than two months. I think there has been more progress in fighting blight in that time than there has been in years. Two of the most important steps are the formation of the Waterbury Blight Enforcement & Control Division and the formation of the Blight Task Force. Instead of farming out blight control to WDC, which has very limited enforcement ability, a division of the police department is now in charge of enforcement. Instead of every city department working on their own, their efforts are unified by the task force.

There seemed to be two basic areas of concern for residents and landlords.

The first concern is that the city is not actually going to follow through on its new promise to help the neighborhood. I think everyone who has lived in the WOW neighborhood for more than 15 years can quickly point back to broken promises and empty promises of the Giordano and Jarjura administrations. All I can say in response to that concern is that the past is the past. Learn from the past, hold the city accountable for its promises, but don't slow things down by dwelling on past wrongs.

The other area of concern is that property owners will be treated unfairly. The city is absolutely getting tough on blight. Property owners are going to be held fully accountable for the condition of their properties. The possibility of jail time for property owners who refuse to comply with anti-blight regulations is being looked into. The city, however, does recognize that not all situations are the same. I know they are very sympathetic towards landlords who are stuck with destructive tenants and are working on finding solutions.

The city is very willing to help anyone who needs help. One audience member last night talked about the difficulty she is having with her rental property. She can no longer afford to maintain it, can't sell it, and was unable to get any assistance from HUD. As soon as she finished speaking, someone from the Health Department sat down with her, got her contact information, and started the process of finding a solution. Mayoral Aide Geraldo Reyes sat down with her next to talk about how he can help.

There was one new initiative announced that received a vigorous round of applause. As most everyone in Waterbury has noticed, the Republican-American has started posting the names and addresses of property owners cited for blight violations by the Health Department. The majority of the property owners live outside Waterbury. This is a huge frustration for those of us who live in the WOW neighborhood. We get blamed for the blighted conditions here, but many of the problems are caused by absentee landlords. What makes it particularly frustrating is that we in the neighborhood have no way of reaching those out-of-town property owners, no way to talk to them about doing a better job of maintaining their property, no way to tell them to clean up, but we are still blamed by the rest of the city for their blight no matter how clean our own properties might be (and, as Bonnie Orintas noted, the WOW neighborhood has some of the city's most beautiful and best-maintained properties).

At last night's meeting, Roseann Wright, Director of the Health Department, announced that they are now sending press releases about out-of-town owners of blighted properties to their local newspapers. This was loudly applauded. Here is a sample press release that was distributed last night:

Paul Guidone presented a Facility Improvement Plan for Walsh School. The plan includes a long list of short-term renovations to be completed before the new school year starts in the fall, including recaulking windows and building exterior joints, reconstructing the front entrance sidewalk, installing security cameras and a new fence, and cutting back overgrown trees and shrubs. The long-term plan is short, but is mainly major renovations and expansions. The Walsh School Facility Improvement Plan is a perfect example of where we are: everything on the list should have been done already, which is frustrating; but I am so pleased that is going to happen now. Waterbury is finally moving in the right direction.

Last, but not least, a delicious pasta dinner was served at the end of the meeting by the PAL organization.

Blight Update

I attended a meeting this morning at City Hall convened by Mayor O'Leary with representatives from key city departments, Board of Education, Board of Aldermen, WDC and community leaders. The topic: Blight.

When the Republican-American first reported that there was interest in relocating the Walsh School students to the new Jonathan Reed School, I was not happy. While I absolutely agreed that the Walsh students should have the best educational facilities, I was horrified at the concept of abandoning the school. If a neighborhood is blighted and the city decides to give up on it, the neighborhood will become a war zone/slum/ghetto/whatever you want to call it. Closing the school will make the neighborhood worse. Yes, the students would be attending school in a new building, but they would still be living in the old, blighted neighborhood, which would disintegrate rapidly. If the neighborhood blight is a problem for the school and the students, the only solution is to clean up the blight. If the school building needs repairs and upgrades, make that happen too.

I was very happy to read yesterday's article, in which the Mayor and the School Superintendent both supported improving the neighborhood and the school, rather than giving up on them.

The meeting this morning was the first of many. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've grown accustomed to city meetings in which everyone sits around debating what to do, complains about the problems, and then nothing ever gets done. This was not that sort of meeting. This is not that sort of Mayor.

Mayor O'Leary made it very clear that it is time for change, time to change the culture, time to change the tactics, time to change the attitude. He expects everyone, city employees and city residents, to roll up their sleeves and work their hardest to turn this city around. As he said, when you walk through neighborhoods like the one surrounding Walsh School, you can feel overwhelmed by the problems and not know where to start. I'd say, based on today's meeting, he's going to take on all the problems at once, building a strong team of people to make it happen.

He has encouraged everyone to be creative with their solutions and to be willing to try new things. He wants to end the culture of negativity, of people saying things can't be done, that problems can't be solved. He asked each department head present to come up with some specifics on improving the city's response to the blight problem, and he asked the community leaders present to make sure the residents do their part as well. He made it pretty clear that he expects everyone to work hard, find positive solutions, and give it all they've got. Leadership in action!

I don't want to sound like I'm back in campaign mode (I'm not), but this was a great meeting.  During the campaign, every so often someone would ask me if O'Leary really was going to follow through on his promises to clean up blight, etc. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's pretty obvious to me that this city is about to get a whole lot better.

Not a Whisper...

Maybe it's more of a shout. Ever since announcing his bid to become the first Republican to be elected Mayor of Waterbury since Giordano, Mike Jarjura has repeatedly stated that there has not been "a whisper of impropriety" about his administration. I guess he has selective memory.

Remember how he gave Ken Skov a sweetheart pension deal in which Skov earned 2 years of benefits for every 1 year he worked? Turns out that was nothing compared to what he did for his friend Joe Davino (who is his near-constant companion on the campaign trail).

After Davino lost his job at the Waterbury Housing Authority, Jarjura put him in charge of cleaning up blight in Waterbury. Davino chose to resign from that job shortly before he was arrested for defrauding the city of Waterbury and committing second degree larceny. He was found using city workers on city time for his own personal activities on more than 80 occasions. He never had to make restitution to the city, and he never had to serve any time--because Jarjura spoke before the judge and asked for leniency. If that's not improper, I don't know what is.

Today the other shoe dropped. The Republican-American published a stunning article. Jarjura actually admitted to reporter Penny Overton that he personally made sure that Davino would be able to collect unemployment benefits, even though Davino chose to resign from his job. You don't qualify for unemployment if you quit. No wonder Jarjura has refused to replace him, even though the city is drowning in blight, and we desperately need someone to take charge and get it under control. Since Davino quit his job, Jarjura has been decreasing the size of the department. I haven't understood that, but I get it now. Jarjura lied to the Department of Labor. The only way he could cover up the lie was to start eliminating positions in the blight department.

Ironically, Jarjura's latest print advertisement boldly declares that "It Was Corruption That Raised Your Taxes." Okay, let's talk corruption. The Mayor gave his friend a city job. When the Mayor found out his friend stole from the city, he protected him as much as he could, and defended him before the judge. Meanwhile, the Mayor lied to the State Department of Labor to guarantee that his friend could claim unemployment benefits. To cover up the lie, the Mayor eliminated his friend's job from the city budget. Never mind that it's a vital job for the health of the city. The Mayor decided that covering up his lie and shielding his friend from justice was more important. He abused his power as Mayor to aid a criminal.

Jarjura wants to talk about corruption. Okay, let's talk. This is a clear case of cronyism, which is political corruption. Davino stole from the taxpayers while he had the blight job, now he's stealing from the taxpayers even though he quit the job. And Jarjura made it all happen.

This is the same Mayor who spent his first four or five years in office making money off a whorehouse later connected to human trafficking. The same Mayor who is currently making money bringing economic development to Middlebury, not Waterbury. If he or his friends can profit, he doesn't care about laws or the taxpayers he is supposed to represent. It's no wonder he was willing to defend someone who stole from the city and then was willing to lie to the state and cover up the lie by eliminating a vital position so that same criminal could collect unemployment.

Do we really want two more years of this?

Blight Revisited

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am greatly frustrated by the blight that plagues our city. We're drowning in blight, and the city seems incapable of solving the problem.

This isn't a new problem. Go back to the Waterbury Observer from 1997 and you'll see a full-page advertisement with a photo of a blighted building being demolished--along with Phil Giordano's campaign slogans "Promises Made, Promises Kept" and "Leadership You Can Trust," and the boast that "70 houses have come down under the Giordano Administration."

(On a side note, from a purely political campaign perspective, it's interesting the way the word "trust" gets used. Giordano's ad put heavy emphasis on his being a "trusted leader." Today's Rep-Am included a letter written by a Jarjura supporter putting heavy emphasis on Jarjura being a Mayor he can trust.)

Jarjura's track record in dealing with the blight problem is miserable.

In 2004 Jarjura gave his good friend Joe Davino one of the most important jobs in the city, putting him in charge of cleaning up blight in Waterbury (after Davino abruptly lost his job with the Waterbury Housing Authority). The situation was as "loosey-goosey" (to use Jarjura's own words) as it gets. In fact, Jarjura himself described Davino's working arrangement as "loose" (Rep-Am, May 6, 2010). When the investigation was complete, it was proved that Davino was guilty of defrauding the city of Waterbury and committing second-degree larceny. Specifically, instead of having his crew work on cleaning up blight in the city, he had them stock his private vending machines and work on his house. Mayor Jarjura spoke on his behalf and asked the judge to be lenient.

In that same article, Jarjura apparently "thought nothing of giving him permission to take time off during the week when things were slow" -- seriously??? Slow??? In a city that is drowning in blight, when can there possibly be slow times?

So there you have Jarjura's "leadership" in dealing with blight for 6 of his years as Mayor. He put one of his closest friends in charge of the problem, not because he was qualified but because he was an old friend, and thought it was perfectly okay for him to be "loose" about the job.

After the Davino scandal wrapped up, Jarjura decided to reduce funding for fighting blight from the city budget. His proposed city budget, announced in March 2011, would have reduced the blight team from 4 full time and 4 seasonal workers to just the 4 full time workers (the previous year there were 8 seasonal workers--see Rep-Am, March 31, 2011).

Most recently, Jarjura decided to bond $1 million for tearing down blighted buildings. You know what happens when you tear down blighted buildings? You get blighted empty lots.

Here is an example of what happens. This is the corner of Walnut and Wood Streets. Several buildings were torn down by the city, and then the city walked away. The lot is full of weeds and litter, and the sidewalk is full of weeds and litter.

Here's a different section of sidewalk on Wood Street. Mayor Jarjura walked up Wood Street this summer--he walked in the street because the sidewalks are unusable. Nothing has happened to fix the problem, even though he has now seen it with his own eyes. Tell me again about how there were "slow" weeks for Joe Davino and his blight crew, and I will gladly show you again that there is more than enough blight to keep a crew of 20 working nonstop.

Here's another example I've blogged about before: this building on the corner of Walnut and Wood Street is blighted, there's a giant hole in the sidewalk large enough for a person to fall down, and the intersection is a school bus stop. Mayor Jarjura stood in front of this building this summer and declared that it needs to come down. It's still standing.

Here's a "good" one. This building partially collapsed in January. Now it is October, and the mess is still making the sidewalk unusable.

What possible excuse is there for ignoring this?

There's another aspect to blight in Waterbury. The preceding blight is largely due to abandoned property. But there are also blighted properties whose owners are active in Waterbury and are not being held accountable for maintaining their buildings.

The Rep-Am recently published a story about the former Bristol Company factory, which is owned by Norman Drubner and is severely blighted. Drubner is also at least partly responsible for some of the most blighted eyesores in downtown Waterbury. He may not own them, but his name is the one prominently featured on them.

Let's start with South Main Street. Here's a building viewed by thousands of people going to shows at the Palace Theater. It's dragging down the entire block.

At street level, it's hideous. It reminds me of some of the scarier-looking parts of Bridgeport.

Over on the Bank Street side, things are slightly better, but not great.

The building is crumbling apart.

Graffiti on the front door. Who would want to buy or lease something that looks like this?

And then there's the former Jimmie's Restaurant, on the corner opposite City Hall. Jarjura must see this every day that he goes to work for the city. How can he stand to look at it every day?

Drubner may not own this building, but surely he could do something to make the restaurant entrance more appealing. If it weren't for the efforts of Main Street Waterbury, it would look even worse.

Where is Mayor Jarjura's leadership on blight? Norman Drubner has allowed blighted buildings to remain blighted. Jarjura wants the city to give Drubner nearly $2 million for his open space property. How about getting Drubner to commit to using the money to fix up blighted buildings? Better yet, how about requiring that Drubner fix up any blighted building he owns before the city gives him any money.

UPDATE 10/12: Sometimes I write blog posts because I'm upset about something. This was definitely one of those posts. I've seen the same blight day after day for years. It's very frustrating. In fairness, maybe the building owners can't afford to do any repairs. Maybe Drubner isn't involved enough to help out. That's when I would expect to see leadership from the Mayor. There are a lot of different ways in which a city can help in these situations. Jarjura has shown little interest. Imagine if Jarjura had made the renovation of blighted downtown buildings a top priority. For that matter, imagine if, instead of developing property in Middlebury, he and his partners had chosen to invest in rehabbing our historic downtown buildings? Other cities have made it happen: why not Waterbury?