Salem residents hijack tax meeting

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SALEM - The purpose of Tuesday's Committee of the Whole meeting was to discuss a half-percent, four-year, capital improvement-only income tax increase.

But several guests had the heavy rain and flooding of June 17 on their minds.

While the issue was linked to infrastructure upgrades that could be implemented through capital improvements, the flooding from a third "100 year rain" since 2003, had some residents angry.

The last administration spent over $400,000 to turn the northwestern part of Centennial Park into a retention pond to slow down water as gravity took the flow eastward.

Residents were told that would solve the problem.

Committee Chairman Earl A. Schory II noted that one resident, retired engineer Jim Bonfert, sounded a warning before the pond was built.

Bonfert lives directly across from Centennial Park on East Pershing Street and is a life-long resident of the neighborhood.

Schory pointed out that Bonfert said "you can't put that amount of water through that pipe" adding that those who were at the tonight's meeting "know he was right."

It was in 2004, a year after the second so-called "hundred-year flood," when Washington Avenue resident Paul Winkler told the city the storm drains were 90 years old and there was a point where a 30-inch line funneled into an 18-inch pipe.

Then-Service Director Joe Julian responded to that saying that he "kept hearing rumors of this 18-inch pipe."

He said he checked it out and found the pipe measured 24 inches at the park and moved across Washington Avenue into a 42-inch pipe at East Pershing Street.

Regardless, Winkler said he had a video "of a river coming into my back yard ... you've got to do something."

He said the water was coming directly from the city drain sewers and he was getting no help.

Julian then said civil engineers, Howells and Baird were hired to study to flooding and explained the main bottleneck was getting the water across the railroad tracks and moving along the Stone Mill Creek near Snyder Road and Buttermilk Creek along Pennsylvania Avenue.

Salem water eventually flows through Franklin Square and eventually winds up in Lisbon.

On Tuesday, Winkler said he again had flooding in his home.

He called the retention pond an "abomination in the park" but Schory reigned him in when he launched an attack on Howells and Baird, who Schory labeled as the city's engineers.

Winkler said his 800 square-foot basement filled in about 15 minutes and it has cost him over $20,000.

"This problem needs fixed," he said, noting it began six years ago.

He pointed to the flooding on the former Sekely (now Butech Bliss) property on Pennsylvania Avenue and said dredging the Buttermilk Creek would relieve backed up water.

Winkler also said the water in front of the hospital was "dumped on us" and the retention pond "doesn't work."

The grates in the pond were catching debris and Winkler said the fire department was hosing "stuff down the drains."

Winkler said, "Go down there and dig them out. You guys are dumping on me. You took ownership (with the retention pond) of the water."

Schory said it piggybacked onto the 100 year rain and Winkler responded, "Three times in the past few years?"

It was after the 2004 flooding when the city began looking the ravine in the northwest section of Centennial Park as a solution.

"There's a lot of water in that valley," he said, explaining that if a retention pond was installed it would be done is such a way it could still be mowed.

On Tuesday, Schory told Winkler the issue on the meeting agenda was a half-percent income tax and Winkler replied, "I don't want to give you a half percent if you're going to spend it on police cars."

Schory said they thought they had "come a long way" to correct the flooding until it happened again.

Guest Ann Kafka, of Sequoia Properties, said Solartec has a huge problem with flooding and incurred $3 million in damages from past flooding and $22,000 in the last two weeks.

She said "Something happened to the water flow of the creek" charging that city officials "haven't figured out what the problem is."

Kafka said there was major flooding from the manhole covers in the area between the Sekely and Solartec buildings and because of that a friend lost her car.

Andres said that Sekely was told to install back-flow check valves there.

Kafka also noted that an outside company was interested in moving into the building.

"How can I convince anyone to move in?" she asked, noting there were sandbags sealing the door bottoms in the old Sekely building.

She added she has called "everywhere" and gotten "nowhere with the city."

Kafka said she called the city to come to the building on June 17 but no one came, a claim Andres disputed.

"I was there within an hour," he said, "I was in the building."

Andres took issue with a couple of Kafka's other assertions and explained he has been in contact with the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

He said Corps of Engineers will decide if the EPA becomes involved and explained he had obtained use of a 45-ton excavator "with a long reach."

Andres said that Kafka's contention that 95 percent of the draining water winds up in the creek was wrong, but it did need cleaned out and he estimated it would take 2,000 truckloads - four trucks for a month - providing they hold up, to do the job.

He said there wasn't enough capacity to get the water over to Snyder Road. "There's a combination of issues," Andres said, "it rained like crazy and the creek backed up and flooded ..."

Andres had doubts about dredging, or scooping out the creek.

"Just cleaning the dirt out won't do it," he said.

Larry Shields can be reached at lshields@salemnews.net