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"It's time for serious change."
Wheeling City Councilman Ben Seidler uttered those five words to our reporter Wednesday evening as the two watched a long-vacant Wheeling Island structure -- the former P.C.'s Irish Pub at 22 Zane St. -- burn to the ground. City firefighters spent the evening and early morning hours Thursday fighting the blaze.
Seidler, in comments to our reporter and also comments in a separate Facebook post, said he is fed-up with the city not moving quickly and forcefully with property owners on demolitions.
"It's sad that we allowed this building to remain standing this long," he said, noting the building was slated for demolition more than a year ago. "We didn't have the backbone to force the hand of demolition, and here we are in a position where our firefighters are risking their lives to put this fire out. Where does it end?
"It's time to get serious about dilapidated properties in the great city of Wheeling -- and that means taking a strong stand against dilapidated properties and the owners that allow this to continue."
We couldn't agree more.
Wheeling is a beautiful city, with many wonderful structures throughout its neighborhoods. It also is a city dealing with a growing number of dilapidated properties -- Seidler said there are about 100 currently on the raze or repair list. This is a problem common to many cities in our region.
These eyesores lead to a negative perception of our city. The building that burned Wednesday was easily visible to those traveling on the Fort Henry Bridge. So instead of seeing our city's rich architectural history of Victorian-era homes, passers-by witness buildings half-demolished. City leaders have long talked of cleaning up Wheeling's gateways, and yet we still have these issues.
For Seidler, that needs to end -- and now.
"It's time that our municipal court stops taking it easy on these situations. It's time that our legal department declares war. It's time for our code enforcement department to be proactive," he said.
We can still recall, in the late 1990s, when then-Mayor Jack Lipphardt marched a contingent from City Council chambers to the Rogers Hotel to post the first "Red X" on a building, with the intent to shame the building's owner into either repairing the structure or tearing them down. The abandoned hotel and other structures emblazoned with that scarlet letter remain standing today.
Seidler is right -- it is past time for the city to take a stronger stand on dilapidated properties, particularly those that have been slated for demolition. Not doing so only continues to damage our city while also putting the public at risk.