Resident: South Kendall Avenue Looks Like Junkyard City

By ANNE HOLLIDAY
WESB/WBRR News Director

A South Kendall Avenue resident says her street looks like Junkyard City, and she doesn’t want Foster Township to have the code enforcement problems the City of Bradford has.

Barb Price told Foster Township Supervisors during their meeting Monday night she’s ashamed to live in the township because of the condition of at least 10 properties on South Kendall.

She said the city’s code enforcement problems are getting most of the attention lately but “Foster Township sure as hell isn’t much better than the city. So I think we better start working together to get this township the way it should be.”

Price said she’s been told that the township’s code enforcement program is complaint driven.

“I don’t know how much complaining this one person has to do,” she said.

Price said she’s not going up and down the street trying to find houses that are in deplorable condition or junkyards on properties. She’s just complaining about the properties she sees on her way to her house and back.

“If you go out in Derrick City you don’t see the junkyards on the main road,” she said. “Take a ride out South Kendall. Just take a ride out South Kendall. It looks like Junkyard City.”

She mentioned one house that has broken windows and no electricity, but people are still living in it and it’s not condemned.

“What in God’s name do we have to do in the township to make things look better?” she asked.

Code enforcement officer John Place was asked if, in fact, code enforcement is complaint driven or if he could be proactive.

“I could be proactive if there were 80 hours in a week and I had three other people working with me,” Place said. “You’re talking about it being a 24-hour-a-day job, eight days a week.”

"Code enforcement, for all practical purposes, is complaint driven,” Place added.

Price encouraged people to “start complaining. That’s the only way we’re going to get it look halfway decent. I’m sure that we don’t want to have the problem the city has.”

Place did say if people have a complaint they should file it, and he’ll act on it.

A person having more than one junk car on his property is also a concern.

Place said a lot of people in the township are involved in stock car racing so, over the years a policy has developed that if a person has a stock car, the township “backs off a little bit on it.”

He also mentioned cases in which he’s taken a case to the district judge, who has fined the person and the fine gets ignored.

“I don’t know where we go from there,” Place said.