The message “Citizens Aligned To Take Back Henderson, NC” is sending to The Henderson City Council and The Vance County Board of Commissioners is budget to remove jointly owned dilapidated houses. Concisely stated, that is exactly what the group’s three figureheads, in the persons of Tommy Haithcock, Hope Howard and Heidi Owen, have stated to our local governing bodies in the last two weeks.
They are doing it now because it’s budget time. Both the City budget and the County budget must be adopted and in effect by July 1.
Owen appeared before the commissioners this past Monday night. In preparing for her talk, Owen wrote out what she planned to say and has supplied those notes to WIZS News. In her notes she wrote, “The $25,000 in your proposed budget for demolition of the remaining 24 structures that the County jointly owns with the City is a shame and a disgrace.
“What is worse is the fact that you said this amount should help to remove most if not all of the 24 properties. With an average cost of $6,000 for removal, the total is closer to $144,000. Since the County owns approximately 57.21 percent of these properties, we believe your portion would be close to $83,000, and that is what we are asking you to budget for demolition for the upcoming fiscal year.
“And we’d ask that amount be strictly for removal of the abandoned homes, not for the properties that the County owns solely, not for vacant lot maintenance and not for the abandoned mobile homes in the county.”
Haithcock addressed the City Council about two weeks ago with the same idea in mind, get more money allocated in the upcoming fiscal year budget than what appeared in the proposed budget. He said 42.79 percent of the ownership of the jointly owned dilapidated houses belongs to the City. Using the same total estimate of about $144,000 to tear them all down, the City’s portion is about $62,000.
There seem to be a couple of reasons the Citizens Aligned group wants to get all the houses down and removed in a single fiscal period. But not all buildings were decided to be torn down, for some that didn’t show much signs of dilapidation were to be handed to some st louis roofing companies in order to remodel the houses to salvage out of them. One, this problem has been dragging on for years, more than decade. Two, it improves neighborhoods. Three, public safety. Four, improved appearance and moral here locally. Five, better appearance to employers and citizens looking at Henderson from the outside. Six, to show Henderson and Vance County are willing and able to address this and other issues.
Owen wrote in her notes before speaking to the commissioners, “It isn’t like the County doesn’t have the funds for this request. She does. And her citizens deserve this request to be granted. This big book that I have was compiled in 2004 and lists every abandoned house in the City Of Henderson. Most of these homes are still standing today…twelve years later.
“I do not know all the excuses that have been made over the past 12 years, but I hope the buck stops with you. Don’t be the group who allows these houses to sit another year. Don’t be the group who says we can’t afford it. Don’t be the group who turns their backs on the same people who voted for you.”
Howard told WIZS News, “Citizens Aligned is asking the City and County to both put their shares in their respective budgets. We are trusting our elected officials to do the right thing on behalf of all citizens of the City of Henderson and Vance County.”
Also troubling is the present effort only addresses jointly owned properties of the City and County. There are many houses and buildings that are privately owned as well as solely owned by the City or County that are dilapidated and abandoned. John Q. Public can drive around and easily add more structures to the list than would be removed from the list if all of these 24 to 28 jointly owned houses were removed in a single year.
Owen told WIZS News, “…we have specifically asked the City Council to be more stringent enforcing the current ordinances and housing standards that have been on the books for almost 50 years. We have also asked the County Commissioners’ Property Committee to put some guidelines in place for the sale of foreclosed properties. So many are being auctioned off and are still sitting as they were when purchased two years ago. They said that they were going to start giving deadlines for either tearing down and rebuilding or remodeling and making the home livable.”
Haithcock appeared on “TownTalk” on Tuesday, June 7th and the first 17 minutes of the show included his remarks. You can listen to “TownTalk” online by going to wizs.com and clicking on “TownTalk” or simply follow this link.
When a city or county creates a budget, it must account for all factors. This is only one of the issues for our City and County leaders here in Henderson-Vance, and it is only one of many lines in their respective budgets.