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July 9, 2009

City cleans up tires on condemned property

By Arthur Foulkes

TERRE HAUTE — A tire cleanup on Hulman Street in Terre Haute this week captured a lot of political attention.

TV and newspaper reporters were on the scene of 1629 Hulman St. at noon Thursday as community corrections personnel, under the supervision of city employees, cut dozens of car and truck tires into quarter pieces.

The reporters had been tipped that the work was being done on property recently purchased in a tax sale by supporters of Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett.

But the whole story may be much more complicated.

“We’ve had a lot of complaints about tires here. And mosquitoes,” said Marty Dooley, an official with the Environmental Protection Division of the Code Enforcement section of the Terre Haute Police Department. Dooley was on the scene with another EPD official and answered questions from the media as community corrections workers used a machine owned by the Clay-Owen-Vigo Solid Waste Management District to slice tires into fourths.

Dozens of discarded tires were lying inside a large pole barn on the property, formerly B & C Wrecking. The tires appeared dry and, therefore, not currently breeding areas for mosquitos. However, community corrections workers, under city supervision, told the Tribune-Star they removed about 50 or 60 tires filled with rainwater from the property on Tuesday.

Water inside discarded tires makes a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos, and the Vigo County Health Department has been active for the past several years eliminating old tires from the county through annual “Tire Amnesty Day” events.

For about two hours on Thursday, two Vigo County Health Department employees were at the cleanup scene helping remove the tires, said Mike Grayless, vector control supervisor for the health department. Those Health Department employees left the site once all the outdoor tires had been eliminated, Grayless said. By county ordinance, the Health Department is only able to deal with tires that are exposed to rain, he said.

Mayor Duke Bennett said the city wants to remove even the tires inside the pole barn on the property because the property is not fenced. The tires could be thrown outside again, set on fire or removed to another location, he noted. And because the barn has no doors on it, rain can blow inside the building, Bennett said.

“They were not secure,” Bennett said of the tires. “As a community, our goal is to get rid of [old tires].”

Grayless, while unable to use county employees to help remove tires from inside the barn, said he sympathized with the city’s desire to remove and destroy all the remaining tires on the property. A recent fire on the property actually resulted in burning tires, he noted. Grayless also said the property has been in poor condition for several years.

The owner of the property at 1629 Hulman St. is Paul A. Langenfeld, according to county records. The lien on the property was sold this spring in a county tax sale, according to the Vigo County Auditor’s Office. A check for the lien came from Ellis Ventures, a business owned by Mike and Kal Ellis, local attorneys and supporters of Mayor Bennett.

Still, while they purchased a lien on the property in the spring, the Ellises are prohibited from doing anything to the property for at least one year, according to city and county government officials. Tax sale purchases do not transfer ownership of property. They simply provide the buyer with a lien on the property that may, after at least one year, result in the purchaser of the lien taking ownership of the land.

Langenfeld and the Ellis brothers could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon. Dooley and Bennett both said the city has attempted to reach Langenfeld to deal with this property for at least a year.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with” Ellis Ventures purchasing a lien on the property, Bennett said when asked about the tire cleanup. He noted that the city condemned the property one year ago and has received several complaints from neighbors about its condition.

Taxes, penalties and fees on the property come to more than $7,000, said an official with the Vigo County Auditor’s office. If Langenfeld pays the amount owed, he would retain ownership of the property, the official said.

“I am glad they are getting it cleaned up,” said a nearby resident who did not want to be named but said she had not complained to the city about the site.

“It was bad,” said Jerri McDonald, who also lives near the 1629 Hulman St. property. “I appreciate whoever is cleaning it up.” McDonald said she had not complained about the site, but had complained about another property owned by Langenfeld in the same neighborhood.

One complaint the city received about the property came from Todd Nation, president of the Terre Haute City Council. Nation, who said he first learned of the tires on the property from a constituent, called the property a “public health hazard.” Several weeks ago, he asked the city to deal with the property, and he had hoped the tires would be removed during the Vigo County Health Department’s Tire Amnesty Day on June 6.

Even removing tires from just inside the building is defensible, Nation said, because rain could still enter the building, which has openings on the north and south sides where doors once were. He also noted the property had large barrels inside filled with what might be hazardous liquids.

“I’m happy to hear that the city is involved in removing the public health hazard” at the site, Nation said. Weeks ago, when he inspected the property, Nation said he counted more than 200 tires outside the building that were filled with water and providing “a good place for mosquitos to breed.” He also counted several hundred tires inside the building, he said.

“The most important thing here is to identify and deal with these public health hazards,” Nation said. “Scoring” political points is not the most important thing. “I think the most important thing is getting the mess cleaned up.”

Dooley, of the Code Enforcement division of the Police Department, estimates cleaning up the property will take a couple weeks since community corrections workers are only available to him a few hours at a time, two days per week. He also said the city will not remove tires with wheels still inside them, since they are not potential mosquitos breeding areas.

Bennett said the cleanup will cost taxpayers very little since community corrections workers are being used and the city employees supervising the clean up are not being paid any additional money to work at the scene. He noted, however, that the city likely will place a lien on the property for the cost of the city workers’ time and any grass mowing for which the city pays.

“This stuff happens all the time,” Bennett said of city efforts to clean up abandoned properties. The city cuts grass at condemned properties and does alley cleanups that also affect private property, he noted. “It has absolutely nothing to do with who bought it in a tax sale.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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