Thirty-five residential properties — determined to be unsafe by code enforcement officers in Hopkinsville’s oldest neighborhoods — will have demolition work using approximately $175,000 to $182,000 from the Inner-City Residential Enterprise Zone, following action Wednesday by the ICREZ board.
The ICREZ board plans to re-allocate $98,780 from its current balance of $273,170 to help pay for the large number of demolition contracts. Also, $100,000 from the agency’s recent $400,000 allocation from city council would be put into the demolition budget.
Votes on the $98,780 re-allocation and on how to budget the $400,000 city allocation were not unanimous. Three members, Bernard Standard, Ruth Lynch and Christinia Powell, were against both motions.
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“We normally don’t do more than 10 or 15 (demolitions) at a time,” Holly Boggess, assistant executive director of Community and Development Services and director of Downtown Renaissance, said after the meeting. However, CDS had delayed demolition work while the city was revising its unsafe properties code, she said.
Roughly three-fourths of the contracts will likely to go East Construction, which had the low bid on 26 of the 35 properties. The bids were opened Aug. 13.
Three other contractors — Siteworks, Outlaw Contracting and T.A. Gaddis Services — each had the low bid on three properties.
Standard said he voted against the two budget measures because he felt like CDS had given the ICREZ too much information to digest in one meeting.
“We moved all the money to demolition, but we don’t know how much it will cost,” he said. “I would like to have more information.”
Standard, who is executive director of the local Human Rights Commission, has been on the ICREZ since it was created by city council in 2005. Three others have served on the board since it was established. They are Lynch, Jesse Quarles and Charles Turner.
When the Code Enforcement Board approves the demolition of a house, liens are filed against the property for the demo work. Liens are also filed when the city has to mow and maintain that property, CDS Executive Director Steve Bourne said.
The board’s vote on how to budget the council’s latest $400,000 allocation will break down as follows: $100,000 for demolition; $67,000 for downtown incentives; $100,000 for neighborhood networks; $108,000 for staffing; and $25,000 for the Community Housing Development Organization. The ICREZ budget requires city council approval.
Downtown incentives had the largest reduction to offset the cut from the city.
In the past few months, five new members have been appointed to the board. They are Annie Catron, Jennifer Maddux, Blake Ladson, Peg Hays and Councilman Jason Bell. They replaced four members who resigned or didn’t want re-appointment – and one, Wynn Radford, who was not re-appointed. The mayor appoints members who serve one-year terms. Members have typically served several consecutive terms.
Turner, who co-chairs the board with Dave Fernandez, referred indirectly to apparent conflict on the board, and between the board and CDS, at the start of the meeting.
He encouraged transparency and cooperation and discouraged “side meetings” that could hurt the board’s work.
There should not be any reluctance on the part of board members to pose questions to CDS, he said, and no one should feel threatened by questions.
The board is considering a retreat meeting. Typically, a retreat is a day-long meeting for a board to review its mission and operations and set goals for new work.
In other business, CDS staff reported:
- Construction has started at Joe Mumford Park and should be completed by Thanksgiving.
- Banners that promote downtown and feature drawings of historical buildings will be installed along Campbell Street as part of the streetscape improvements there.
- Coaches are needed for three chess teams in local schools.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
