Lauren

Dangerous tree: tree belt tree has rotted away halfway through at base. Several neighbors have reported the tree to the city, but if you just drive by you might not see the base is completely rotten, making it more dangerous than it may look from a distance. thanks!

This building (and 211 Walnut St) has changed status from regular multifamily residential to providing emergency shelter and services inside the building in an office. In a community meeting, the building owner said that there is not a wired fire alarm, but regular battery operated alarms. This is very concerning to me as a neighbor because it is so close to other houses and could cause serious damage if it burns. And, I'm worried about the people being housed in these buildings who don't have a choice because they have been placed there. At least the hotels had sprinklers! His other building on Main St. burned down and people died-- I'm afraid of something like that happening here, especially when there are no wired fire alarms at this one. Also, is it a new use of the building for the non-profit to provide services there and maintain an office in it? Wouldn't that be commercial? The non-profit occupying it also indicated that there are multiple families (previously strangers) housed together in the apartments in some cases. Is that not considered a boarding house? I tried to address these issues with my city councilor, but it's a complicated issue that I haven't been able to get answers about. So, I'm posting it here in hopes that the fire dept can look into the situation and perhaps require the building owner to do some upgrades to be able to have these new types of uses of the building. Thank you.

I have spoken directly with the owner, Irshad Sideeka, now twice over the past month about cleaning up the graffiti on this building and the one across the street. He has not done it. This particular one is Kings graffiti but there is more on almost every side of the building. Can you please make him clean it up?

This light is out again. There was just a very bad multi-car accident. Cars are parked all of the way up to the street and it's very difficult to see. There should be a caution sign put out there and a temporary no parking to aid in visibility for cars on Appleton to be able to see better when traffic is clear to cross. In this most recent accident, a car ended up thrown clear into the YMCA parking lot. There is a park at this intersection as well and children often cross here. Last time, we asked for signs to be put up warning people to stop at the light and that prevented the 1-3 accidents that were happening per day. It's too dangerous of an intersection to just leave flashing. If someone dies, the city will have blood not heir hands.

The bulbs burned out 2 or 3 days ago and there have been at least 3 large accidents so far. This is the same intersection as the YMCA and there is a small park on the corner as well. I worry about someone being seriously injured or killed. It would be very easy for someone from HPD/DPW/HFD to bring a stop sign and place it on the side of the street closet to Oak and prevent any more damage/injuries/ and even the potential for loss of life. Several people have been taken off in stretchers already. And, as a nearby resident, I've heard several near accidents as well with cars screeching and careening, but not crashing. Please either fix the signal or at least set up a no-parking barrier (for visibility) near the corner and put a stop sign up. I know there are many priorities and needs in the city, but this is a situation where the city may actually be responsible for a death or serious injury if it doesn't act quickly.

There is a sink hole in the alley behind this address. It is about 3 feet deep. The alley is used for trash pickup (tomorrow morning btw) and does get a decent amount of car traffic. This could really damage an axle if a wheel fell in and down the hole. The hole is right where tires drive. I put a piece of plywood painted white over it, but a heavy truck might break through. It seems to get much larger deeper down. I'm posting a photo of the opening.

There is a really ugly looking tow yard at this location that is on a DR lot. Maybe they are able to get away with it because they painted a crappy looking "Holyoke is rising" sign on the exterior of their building next door. They need to get a zone change for the lot and/or have their lot merged with their other property to have 20+ smashed up cars in this residential neighborhood. I'm not sure it's even legal to have that many junk cars on one small lot. There are currently 26 cars on a tiny lot next to residential properties. It's so sad to see Holyoke letting downtown be a dumping ground for wrecked cars. It's also vulgar that this scummy tow operation says Holyoke is rising and then parks a plethora of junk cars on their property.

This building is being neglected by its owner. It is completely unsecured. The boarded up door opens. None of the screws are secured. Neighbors recently cleaned up behind this building and found many needles. There are several tree stumps that someone has moved from the city property across the alleyway to create a hiding place back there. It would be great if the city could get this building properly secured and also remove the very large tree stumps. I don't know how someone moved them because they were too large for us neighbors to get them back to the city property where they used to be.

There are multiple signage violations at this business. I talked to an employee about taking down the large beer ads hanging outside the building and they said they would a week ago, but it hasn't happened. It just keeps getting worse with multiple violations and looks really bad in a residential neighborhood with residences across the street.