City Appearance

FEBRUARY25, 2016

How we look matters.  Part of getting newbusinesses and families to come to Middletownis to present a clean, neat appearance throughout the city when theyarrive.  I’ll say it again because it’s that important… How we lookmatters.

The I-75 interchange is our gateway into the City.  If wewant to develop the East End, it starts with apleasing, tidy appearance as you come off the highway.  We started thatprocess with the ODOT improvements last year.  I’m not satisfied with theend results, however, and I’ve asked Public Works to look at ways to furtherenhance the appearance at the interchange.  If we intend to send themessage that things are changing in Middletown,one of the best ways is to demonstrate those changes visually, not justto talk about them.  I hope to have our interchange looking sharp bythe end of 2016.

While attending a city manager conference last year, one cityhad what I would call a “Transform Middletown” crew that worked each summer onappearance details in the city.  The concept was pretty straightforward.  You assemble a seasonal crew with a public works leader. Their job is to clean and tidy Middletown. If it is bent, straighten it. If it is rusted, replace it. If it is faded,replace it. If it has peeling paint, scrape it and  paint it.  If ithas weeds, pull them.  If it needs mulch, mulch it.  If it is nolonger necessary, remove it. If it has trash, pick it up.  Pay attentionto details. I am working with Public Works to try this concept thissummer.  In theory, once some of these items are cleaned up along themajor roads in town, the crew would move into the parks and theneventually into the neighborhoods.  If it works well this year, we’llcontinue the process and keep cleaning the city and paying attention to thedetails that would make our city more attractive every day.

I’ve asked Chief Muterspaw to look at bringing back the prisonerclean up crews that we used to use to clean trash in the parks.  We are inthe planning stages of how often we might be able to utilize those resources,but I would like to see some use of them this summer if possible.

In 2015 Code Enforcement staff completed 687 Commercial CodeEnforcement Inspections, resolving 393 of them by year end.  Theycompleted 1,634 Residential Code Enforcement Inspections, resolving 1,274 byyear end.  They completed 4,112 Nuisance Inspections, resolving 3,763 ofthem by year end.  Code enforcement staff will out this springworking to make the city a cleaner, nicer place to live.  I added anadditional $150,000 to the 2016 for abatement of nuisances.  We work withhomeowners and businesses across the city to voluntarily take care of theirproperty violations.  We will continue that practice, but for those whowill not make needed repairs, we will start abating the nuisance for you in2016.  If we are going to clean up the entire city, then at somepoint, we actually have to clean up, with or without the property owner’sassistance.  If we are going to have attractive neighborhoods and improveproperty values, every house on your street and every business is going tohave to do their part.  That includes your government.  We have to doa better job of keeping our buildings in compliance as well.  We’ll allstruggle through this one together.  The end result is worth the struggle.

Codeenforcement and attention to detail will also involve removing junk motorvehicles from the city.  As we move through neighborhoods and strive toclean up the city, automobiles that are either inoperable or not properlyregistered will be removed if the owner does not take care of theissues.   The MPD task forces will not only be cracking down on drugactivity in the city this spring, but they will also be taking action on any illegal activity in the area wherethey are currently working.  If you receive a warning sticker on yourcar and you fail to take action, it will be towed after thestatutory period to allow you to correct the problem.

Finally, how we look is about details, all the way down to howcity vehicles look on the road.  We are looking to update over time ourvehicle appearance.  If we show you that your government can change,hopefully others will start to take  pride in their city and join usfor the cause.  Below is our first update to a Public Works vehicle. You should see it out in the city very soon, and we will be updating vehiclesas we purchase new and do repair work on the older vehicles.

We’re going to be working hard to clean and tidy up thecity this year.  Let us know how we’re doing and feel free to point outareas that need attention.  It may take us a while to get everywhere, butextra sets of eyes are a great help to find remaining problems.  Wewelcome  your help.

Have a great day!