House deemed 'blightedproperty'
EVANS CITY — The borough council appears ready to take steps toward tearing down a house on Wahl Avenue owned by Butler County Commissioner Jim Eckstein.
Council President Kim Armstrong said last week the council has successfully had two Wahl Avenue houses, one owned by Eckstein, deemed “blighted properties” at the county level, and will direct borough solicitor Mike Gallagher to send the property owners letters telling them of the designation.
The other house is owned by the Caldwell family.
She said the letter will open the door to legally tearing the houses down, which she hopes to have done in September.
Armstrong said Eckstein has done nothing to improve his property except cut the grass.
He bought the house in 2007 at a tax sale.
Eckstein could not be reached for comment.
His large, two-story house has missing shingles, an unstable brick chimney that is leaning toward the sidewalk, a tree growing through a set of decaying exterior steps, rotting window and door frames, fallen gutters, a broken window and a large decaying porch containing household and garage items.
He does not live there.
Armstrong said the house was abandoned by its previous owners, who left piles of garbage in the house, and food in the cupboards and refrigerator.
Council members told Eckstein at the time of the tax sale he had one year to bring the property up to code.
But last year, Eckstein said that the funds he planned to use to rehabilitate the house were spent defending himself against a lawsuit brought by fellow Commissioner Dale Pinkerton.
Eckstein said last year that he cleaned the house of mounds of garbage and planned to begin working on the building so he could rent it out.“Here's my promise to the people of Evans City,” Eckstein said last summer. “I'm going to start putting a roof on in the fall. I apologize if I upset anyone.”But Armstrong said that promise was a hollow one.“He hasn't done one thing but cut the grass,” she said.The main problem that has kept council from dealing with the house was that the borough did not employ a code enforcement officer for the past few years so there was no one to enforce code violations.At Monday night's council meeting, Armstrong recommended that council hire Richard Manus, the former code enforcement officer who had taken leave for an illness but is now ready to work again.But councilman Ed Tanski said the action should be tabled because as a personnel issue, it should first be discussed in executive session.No action on hiring Manus was taken by council Monday night, but Armstrong said the notification letters will be sent to the owners of the blighted houses.
