Is the new Wayne Township trustee a hero, looking out for both the poor and the taxpayer?
Wayne Township's new trustee, Rick Stevenson, said taxpayers are saving money now that the shelter program has been relocated.
Last week when Stevenson took office, families were living in deplorable conditions at Centlivre Village Apartments, where taxpayers were helping to pay the rent. There were roaches, dead mice, crumbling ceilings, and mouse drops in some of the apartments the township rented there and placed needy families in for its shelter program.
Or is he a publicity hog who is actually making it harder for those trying to help the poor?
The six apartments at Centlivre are under the care of the Outreach Division of the trustee's office. The only thing Centlivre is responsible for is general maintenance when they are called by a representative of that Outreach Division. Because of confidentiality issues, the management of Centlivre just leases the apartments to the trustee's office, which is responsible for the in and out condition of each apartment and for the tenants they place there.
Before the trustee's office took over these six apartments, the staff inspected and approved each one. Therefore, it seems that the “deplorable” conditions are a result of someone dropping the ball at the trustee's office and of a knee-jerk reaction to the way the underserved are treated.
Sadly, the apartment that was featured in the news was an apartment on the waiting list to be renovated, has not been recently inhabited and is not even one of the six paid for by the trustee's office.
Withoug more information, I don't know. But there is usually more than one side to every story, and it's dangerous to just take one person's version of things at face value without doing any checking, even an elected official's. Yes, I've been guilty of this sin. Most of us in this business have been at one time or another.
