253 east 2nd st: Another "emergency demo". Happening now

[sheclown]

While digging around looking for info on another house, we came across this:



Over on the left hand side (use the bar at the bottom to scoot it over) you'll see the beginnings of a discussion about this property.

Joel tells the commission:

...This building has a new roof, it has been completely -- a new structural system has been put on the inside.  They started putting in heating and air-conditioning or duct work.

     Unfortunately, they started bracing and rebuilding the porch.  Unfortunately, they put the wrong windows in....

we are requesting the rest of the transcript on this house.

[JaxUnicorn]

Decided to check to see how much the City has spent on this property.  Below are the current nuisance liens and the amounts due as of today.  This does NOT include the demolition lien that has yet to be filed.

Nuisance Lien  NBNL11007742  09/12/2011  $717.78   
Nuisance Lien  NBNL11002061  12/01/2010  $712.59   
Nuisance Lien  NBNL11001606  11/19/2010  $2,462.66   
Nuisance Lien  NBNL10006225  08/28/2010  $667.92   
Nuisance Lien  NBNL10004240  04/21/2010  $477.71   

The above amounts are the total amount due which includes the initial cost and accumulated interest.  Due to the difficulty in obtaining public records and the excessive costs quoted, I don't have the actual records and can only assume the amounts less than $1,000 are for lawn maintenance/grass cutting.  The largest lien is most likely for boarding, which was quite successful in keeping people out of the structure.  The City boards were still on the structure the day it was demolished.

So I ask.....why did the City tear down a structure that they spent over $2,000 securing?  Doesn't make any sense to me.   And now the city has an even bigger area to mow/maintain.  Sad indeed....

[strider]

Nuisance liens are for work performed.  They consist of the city approved sub-contractor charges to actually do the work and then an add-on for city admin costs.  If not paid by a certain time, interest starts to accrue. And last ime I had to deal with it, the lawn care company cutting that lawn for you gets 35 to 50 dollars, it charges the city 200 to 300 for the "abandoned" house. But I'm sure it is all legit.

Now add to this total the most recent cost of the demolition (8 to 15K?) and then compare that to the fact that if Ms Scott had listened to the planning department and not torn down this house, those nuisance liens mentioned above would have been paid at closing and the demolition costs would never have been incurred.

So what could have been a plus for the city both financially and community relation wise was turned into a potential $ 200,000.00 plus cost to us tax payers by Ms Scott and her desire to demolish another house.  And what happens if it is proved that she used federal funding to do it and did not follow the federal rules?  Could millions of federal funding be withheld because of it? 

Hmm,  let me see, we are closing libraries but still allowing MS Scott to run her department in such a way as to cost us tax payers potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars per demolished historic house, and put millions of dollars of federal funding potentially at risk.  Yep, I must be in Jacksonville.

[movedsouth]

Partial response from the city as to the demolition costs:

253 E 2nd Street Demolition:


Cost of Report - $909.85
Demolition Cost - $16,995.00
Contractor – P & G Land Clearing, Inc.
Funding Source – HNHS1A3HPDC-09995NSP304-PDC023-11

129 E 2nd Street Demolition:


Cost of Report - $523.85
Demolition Cost - $10,495.00
Contractor – P & G Land Clearing, Inc.
Funding Source – HNHS1A3HPDC-09995NSP304-PDC023-11

[iloveionia]

253 E 2nd Street Demolition:
Funding Source – HNHS1A3HPDC-09995NSP304-PDC023-11

129 E 2nd Street Demolition:
Funding Source – HNHS1A3HPDC-09995NSP304-PDC023-11

NSP3 appears together in each of the funding sources.
I am not one to believe in coincidences. 
NSP dollars funded the demo of historic homes?

[sheclown]

[strider]

Hard to see the above image, but Mr Lloyd used $ 2,475.00 as a cost of demo on the permit form for 253 East 2nd St and the same for 129 East 2nd St.  You are required to disclose the correct costs on those official documents.  It appears that Mr Lloyd used a number below the $ 2,500.00 requiring a Notice of Commencement perhaps?  Not all that legal I also suspect. Or there could be a scaled cost for demolition permits so he was trying to keep his permit cost down?  Not very legal either.

[strider]

The next thing to look at will be how P& G Land Clearing stacks up against the competition in competitive bidding for regular demolitions.  Is he normally high?  Or normally the lowest?  If so, using him for emergency demolition that are not bid out could be a reward for those low bids and he really make up for them with the emergencies or of course, it could be a sign that things are not exactly being legally done.