Over the past two decades, the city of Youngstown has undertaken the herculean task of demolishing thousands of blighted homes and properties that posed serious public safety and health hazards.

On numerous occasions over those years, this newspaper has saluted city leaders in the fire, blight remediation, community development and other departments for their success in this massive and oftentimes dangerous cleanup effort.

Most recently, we congratulated them for nearing the finish line. The final set of approximately 10,000 abandoned homes and structures razed since the turn of the century will come face to face with the wrecking ball sometime in 2025, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent announced last month.

Amid such success, however, a disturbing trend of embarrassing miscues in the demolition process has surfaced in recent months and years that have cost the city and its taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and have stained the image of demolition management in Youngstown.

Consider:

● Last December, city council authorized spending $110,936 to reimburse owners of property in a storage warehouse on South Avenue that a city-hired contractor removed and destroyed in advance of the warehouse’s demolition. The owners claimed they were not properly notified of the exact date of the seizure and demolition.

● Last fall, the city had demolished a residential structure on Albert Street despite a court order not to knock it down. It recently settled the case with the homeless woman who filed the order by giving her a different vacant house it had acquired through the county land bank. The woman chose the free home in lieu of a monetary settlement.

● Just last week, council authorized settling a longstanding dispute with Two Bridges LLC, the owners of the former Anthony’s on the River restaurant downtown over that Oak Hill Avenue building’s demolition in 2020. According to the settlement, the city will pay Two Bridges $80,000 and will remove a $48,000 demolition assessment and $10,675 in interest on that assessment. According to Two Bridges, no one from the company had received demolition notices because they were mailed to a wrong address, and owners claimed they had made numerous improvements to the building to ward off its razing.

Collectively, these cases share a common cause: failure to communicate directly, clearly and with certainty to owners of condemned properties of the exact date on which the city will use its legal authority to rid a neighborhood of what it considers a blighted eyesore that threatens public health.

Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown acknowledged the conundrum when discussing the homeless woman’s house settlement with our Youngstown city reporter David Skolnick recently.

Brown said, “This continues to happen. We notify people who own properties that are going to be demo’d, and at the last minute they ask that it not be torn down — and that’s usually after we take it down.”

Clearly more safeguards are needed to prevent similar disputes — and costly settlements — in the future. Communication appears to be the missing link.

Demolition managers could work to check the courts for any last-minute orders against razing a structure. Documented contacts with blighted building owners could be required on the day of or day before the wrecking balls close in on such sites.

Other options could be available as well. One thing, however, is clear. Doing nothing would put the city at risk of additional fumbles and costly bites into its already strained municipal budget.

Clearly, mistakes can and do happen. But once such mistakes are uncovered, aggressive and swift corrective action must be taken. We trust Youngstown leaders will study and find ways to prevent such gaffes from recurring. In so doing, they can ensure their largely successful and effective work to make the city cleaner and more inviting to all will not be severely tarnished.

editorial@vindy.com