The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Council gives okay on four search warrants
With 104vacant properties in the City of Oneida, officials are cracking down on building owners.
ONEIDA, N.Y.>> The City of Oneida’s fight against dilapidated vacant properties continued at Tuesday night’s common council meeting.
The city is preparing to execute search warrants on four properties this Thursday, March 9. The warrants will allow an engineer to go inside the buildings in question in order to generate structural reports for the common council.
Currently, city officials have been able to inspect the exteriors of the four properties which led to the subsequent code violations cited when calling the property owners before the council.
With the structural reports regarding the inside of the properties in question, the common council will be better prepared and able to determine what changes the owner must make to remediate their properties.
Because the warrants are scheduled to go into effect on Thursday, the council moved to continue the public hearings for 112 Madison St. and 507 Stone St. at the next City of Oneida Common Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 21.
City Attorney Nadine Bell explained that, this way the council has time to “consider the additional info” provided by the interior engineering report. At the next meeting, armed with the information provided via the search warrants, the council can issue an order of remediation for the property. Under the terms of the order,
Bell said, the city can provide the property owner a list of tasks that need to be completed before the building is considered safe again. Further, the city can assign different due dates for each task it lists.
As it pertains to the Hotel Oneida, Bell also revealed that she had received an email from Robert Sullivan of Sullivan Contracting, based in Sauquoit, regarding the city’s intent to declare his property as unsafe, thereby requiring repairs be made.
Bell related Sullivan’s email to the council in which Sullivan expressed his belief that the building is structurally sound. Additionally, Sullivan revealed plans to make re- pairs to the roof sometime this summer and maintained that his taxes on the property are current. He said that he is not responsible for policing vagrants who find their way into his stairwells but encouraged the Oneida City Police Department to do so. Sullivan also said he sent workers to the property throughout the summer to keep the hedges trimmed and do a walk-through of the property to ensure all doorways and windows were secure.
Ward 5 Councilor Jim Chamberlain took exception with Sullivan’s claim regarding keeping the grass cut at Hotel Oneida. Chamberlain said it was not true, adding that city workers had to visit the property throughout the summer to mow.
Local law on hold
A proposed law that would establish a vacant building registry in the City of Oneida won’t go into effect quite yet as Mayor Leo Matzke pulled the legislation before the onset of Tuesday night’s common council meeting.
The law, which city officials hope will reduce the number of dilapidated and empty buildings that dot Oneida, is part of Matzke’s agenda to cleanup the city. It would require vacant building owners to register with the city when a property becomes vacant.
Matzke said that after meeting with his codes committee, he believes the best course of action is to have city assessor Lonnie Steadman act as the municipality’s property manager. Originally, the task of monitoring vacant properties on the registry was to be a fire department task.
“There will be no changes to law,” Matzke said, reiterating the need to address the vacant properties in the city. The mayor said that excluding properties involved in the FEMA Buyout, there are 102 vacant buildings in the city and also 50 abandoned cars.
Additionally, the registry would require information such as a description of the property, up-todate contact information, the plan for how the property will be maintained while listed vacant, demolished if deemed necessary, and returned to appropriate occupancy use should the owner seek to rehabilitate. The owner would also be required to pay a fee to register their property.
The proposed law would also establish specific protocols for vacant building maintenance including minimum requirements for upkeep, inspection schedules, and exemptions. Owners who fail to remediate vacant properties as directed would face a fine of up to $250 and/or 15 days in jail. Each day’s violation would be considered a new and separate offense, according to the proposed law.
Honored for service
City of Oneida Parks and Recreation Director Luke Griff took the opportunity at Tuesday’s to thank Oneida Supervisor Joe Magliocca for his dedication to the parks and recreation community, citing Magliocca’s involvement in the Oneida Rail Trail and work on developing a trail system at Mount Hope. Magliocca was presented with the Central New York Recreation and Park’s Society 2016 Distinguished Citizen Award in January.