Fighting For A Stay Of Execution At 422 30th Ave. N.

Photo By John Hoff 

Connie Nompelis (No-bell-iss, it's Greek) reminds me of Sandra Bullock in the movie "A Time To Kill."

Bullock plays an idealistic young attorney who opposes the death penalty with every fiber of her being. Bullock's great moment in the movie is when she starts shouting at her somewhat right wing co-counsel, "You watch a man die. You watch them strap him down, you watch the look on his face, you watch him twitch, you watch him die, and then you come back and tell me...etc. etc."

Something like that. Well, who cares what the speech is about? It's SANDRA BULLOCK in tears, and any real man wants to do WHATEVER SANDRA WANTS to make her stop crying. Though, as one of my students at the U of M School of Journalism and Mass Communication once said, "What is it with guys of a certain age who all think SANDRA BULLOCK is so hot?"

Ouch.

Anyway, Connie Nompelis gets that kind of John Grisham novel intensity about trying to save historical houses from demolition. I imagine her throwing demolition orders across a table, like Sandra Bullock threw a pile of law books.

Connie's latest idealistic cause is 422 30th Ave. N., a house that is virtually on "death row." It is a solid brick house, but the inside is in really rough shape. It's in the Hawthorne Eco Village development cluster...

...and CPED has been trying to buy it. Lots of houses purchased by CPED get demolished, but not always. Connie believes this house can be saved, at least the historic brick exterior. My feeling is, well, if it CAN be saved, why not save it? I've also raised the issue of NOT ENOUGH SALVAGE taking place at these demolitions in the so-called Eco Village. If nothing else can be saved, those bricks could prove useful for walkways.

Word is some technicality is keeping the house from selling, though it is listed. It has something to do with the foreclosure process being flawed.

This is the very house where Jeff Skrenes, mortgage geek extraordinaire, got all excited about some handwritten technicality included in the foreclosure documents affixed to the door. In an odd way, this house might be saved because of nothing more than somebody's failure to dot i's and cross t's.

Given the condition of the house, no slumlord will want it because the fixes will be incredibly extensive and expensive, with so many other ultra-affordable jewels on the market just waiting to get snapped up. So if this house is going to be saved, it will probably be a matter of the city buying it, then reselling it to a developer of sorts. Who? Some kind of historical society? Some kind of house buff who has always dreamed of historic brick in the heart of urban revitalization? Does such a rare and savory morel mushroom of a human being exist?

I have asked that 422 30th Ave. N. be brought up for discussion at Wednesday's Hawthorne Housing Committee meeting. I feel like Woody Harrelson in "A Time To Kill." What does it matter that I said, by my vote on the committee, I had "no objection" to the house being demolished? I can't face down the impassioned pleas of our very own "Sandra Bullock." So I can say, well, though I have NO OBJECTION to demolition, I really strongly feel there needs to be an extensive discussion about alternatives to demolishing the house.