County: Utica is a mess looking for a clean up

Utica, sometimes called “Mill Hill,” has some of the look out of an apocalyptic movie, county officials said Tuesday, and it’s time to do something about that.Burned out houses, uninhabitable but nevertheless with residents. Drug dealing. Drug manufacture. Stealing and other crime of almost every sort. It all goes on in Utica, District 3 Councilmember Paul Cain said Tuesday, and it’s all a drain on the resources of the Sheriff’s Office and the courts and it’s also unfair to the law-abiding residents who still live there. One elderly Utica resident has reported six lawnmowers stolen so far this year. “Some might say, ‘Well that’s just Mill Hill’,” Cain said, “but that’s not acceptable. County officials agreed Tuesday that addressing the problems of Utica gives the opportunity to develop ordinances that could be applied in other blighted areas of the county. The Council directed County Administrator Amanda Brock and county staff to develop by the Council’s second meeting in September a matrix for gauging what can be done in Utica that would serve as a benchmark for county ordinances. County attorney David Root outlined the basic task as 1) determining the ownership of the properties, 2) gauging their state of dilapidation and danger of habitation, 3) determining any delinquent tax status of the property. In some cases agreements with the owner could lead to demolition of the houses judged uninhabitable or beyond repair.