Fire Prompts Discussion of Dilapidated WVa. Properties

Jan. 12--To look at the agenda for Tuesday's meeting of the Fairmont City Council, you would have never seen it coming. Nowhere among the resolutions and public hearings was time allotted for discussion of dilapidated city properties. A Monday morning fire changed that.

The fire, on the 1100 block of Fourth Street, razed an abandoned house that was brought to the attention of the council by a concerned neighbor during the final council meeting of 2011. In fighting the fire, a city firefighter was injured when part of the structure gave way. He was taken to Fairmont General Hospital where he was treated for an eye injury and released.

Judging from the reaction of council members Tuesday, the entire episode was an eye-opener.

"To be quite honest with you, I'm a little set back and embarrassed that this gentleman took the time to come to council and speak about this structure, and then we're discussing the very same building being on fire," Councilman Bob Sapp said.

The issue, according to city manager Jay Rogers, is not council's willingness to act on such properties, but their ability based on state regulations.

"This is a struggle that all municipalities are facing. It's just one component of many where I think the much larger issue is the freedoms that are not being given to municipalities to create some of our own mechanisms, but rather being dictated to by the state as to how we do things," Rogers said.

Rogers explained that there are basically two options. Either public tax dollars are spent to remove problem properties or the city will have to redouble its efforts to force property owners, who often live outside the city, if not the state, to fulfill their responsibilities.

City attorney Kevin Sansalone said that simply posting notices on the properties does not provide due process.

He said that he sent a notice and a processing fee to law enforcement in Webster Springs two months ago in order to serve the owner of the house that burned Monday, but received no response.

Council discussed a fee for property transfers, extra demolition dollars added to the road fund or a levy as ways to generate funds to help deal with problem properties.

Though opinions vary on where the money should come from, council agrees that something must be done.

"These homes are hazardous. They are hazardous to our firemen and are hazardous to our policemen and to our neighbors and our neighbors' children," Councilman Dan Weber said. "We need to do something about it."

Rogers said that city fire and police keep an updated list of "do not enter" properties, but according to Fairmont Fire Chief Jim Emerick, some dilapidated structures are kept off that list because of the threat a fire would pose to nearby property.

Copyright 2012 - The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.