An item related to a matter that surfaced during a June 28 Finance Control Board meeting public comment session—a relatively new element of the three-year-old meetings—is set to appear on the agenda of the Springfield City Council tonight, Monday, August 20, at its 7:30 pm meeting at City Hall.
Before the control board two months ago, and evidently dealing with an ongoing chronic difficulty, Longmeadow resident Ann Schielke bemoaned a situation near property she owns and maintains on Orange Street in Forest Park.
“There’s a property across the way where young people congregate smoking, eyeing anybody who comes to my property [to repair or maintain it],” she said at the podium in City Hall’s Room 220, referring to Alex’s Market at 232-234 Orange Street, at the corner of Revere Street (pictured below; summer 2007 photos by Bill Dusty of the Springfield Intruder).
She continued, “The property is supposed to be closed at 9:00. I go by each day—10:00 they’re still open, 10:30, 11:30. After 11:30, they finally close.” Now raising her voice, Schiekle shouted, “Their permit is for 9:00 in the evening! Where are the rules and laws of our city?”
Her concerns stemmed from challenges trying to repair and maintain a vacant property including at least one house and an adjacent tiny retail shop, apparently closed for a while, called Room with a Vieux (pictured above in March 2006).
During the public comment session, Schiekle told the control board about break-ins and thefts at the property, and about gutter repairmen being scared off by the clientele at Alex’s Market across the street.
“They took all the plumbing, all the electrical wires, attachments to the boilers, the hot water heaters,” Schiekle reported, referring to the thefts from her property. “They ripped down ceilings to get to steam piping. They took every bit of furniture that my son—who came from the Midwest to be with his father, because he had a horrible stroke, and we thought it was too dangerous for him to stay there—but he left his belongings there, and nothing is left of any value.”
The market across the street has been open for around a year. When I walked the Orange Street corridor to take photos in March last year, the storefront had been long vacant, but recently painted brightly as though someone was preparing to move in. At the time, the fresh coat of paint was a signal of hope. Soon thereafter, the metal doors over the windows came up and the place was open for business. Little did I know that the apartments on the second floor had already been cited for code violations at the time.
Schielke’s problems with the market, and other problems in the neighborhood with crime and upkeep, are indeed not the first.
As reported on the Forest Park Civic Association Web site, “Neighborhood complaints about prostitution, loitering, drug activity, litter and parking on sidewalks, plus citations by the City zoning administrator for failure to comply with conditions on its special permit, are some of the reasons Alex’s Market faces a City Council [special permit] revocation hearing on Monday evening.”
The special permit was evidently granted in February 2005 to Dari Checo, Aris Polanco and Juan Mejia of Lawrence.
“When the permit was requested,” the FPCA’s site notes, “the property was already in Housing Court for code violations concerning apartments on the second floor of the mixed use building.”
The hearing was requested in July by zoning administrator Michael Jachym, citing a failure to pave a parking lot, to install fencing or landscaping, or to use the property in accordance with site plans under which the permit had been granted.
The FPCA also reports that Jachym cited the market for operating outside the hours of 7:00 am to 9:00 pm—the very matter Schiekle noted before the control board as an ongoing threat to the neighborhood’s peace and quiet, albeit in a state of mild outrage—as well as a number of other problems related to appearance, safety and city regulations.
“Besides being a chronic problem for residents of Orange and Revere Streets and members of the nearby Avalon Crime Watch,” the FPCA’s site reports, “the many serious and unsightly problems at Alex’s Market have for years been obvious to passersby and occupants of the thousands of cars going up and down Orange Street every day.”
A July article in the Republican about addressing blight and other problems at 91-93 White Street mentions Revere Street as an area of prime concern for the crime watch group, mentioning litter, graffiti and crime such as prostitution and drug use. A highly-publicized shootout took place earlier this year on nearby Malden Street, another corridor of profound concern for Avalon’s captain Arelys Diaz and her diligent neighborhood team watching out for potential difficulties to address. With such salient problems as these, one wonders whether a mix of dedicated, concentrated city resources could be applied here to great success, if it isn’t already.
Forest Park residents and others concerned about the city are invited—urged—to contact city councilors about the revocation of the market’s special permit, and to attend the hearing. Those wanting more information may call City Council aide Bob Arieti at (413) 787-6170. The Republican covers the matter in an article today as well, including in the piece a brief mention of several other matters before the City Council tonight in addition to this one.
