The highlight of last night's meeting of the Jordan Area Community Council (JACC) was, beyond a doubt, the appearance of Mr. Ijadimbola, the owner of 1551 Hillside Ave. N., a property which is the bane of many folks' existence up there in Hillside Country, click here for example.
Ijadimbola's appearance before JACC and his long, detailed apology wasn't exactly a spontaneous act of contrition. In fact, it sounds like he was spurred to apologize in hopes of cleaning up his internet identity. The tangled, sorry history of "1551" was laid out before the board: it was Ijadimbola's first investment property, and he made mistakes. The property manager he hired wasn't any good. He got one bad tenants. The major lesson he learned: if you aren't good at making home repairs yourself--if that's not really your area of expertise--then don't try to become a property investor.
The apology didn't exactly get a warm welcome from JACC...
Dave Haddy, who described himself as living "two houses down from that hellhole" (click here for "Hellhole" by the rock 'n' roll parody band Spinal Tap) made mention of drugs, prostitution, and a raid by the SWAT team only weeks after the first set of bad tenants occupied the place. The house, Haddy said, used to be a nice building but now it's in such bad shape it may need to be demolished.
"I can't accept your apology," Haddy said. Haddy suggested Ijadimbola go knock on the doors of neighbors who were forced to put up with the house--who continue to deal with the problems at the house--and apologize to THEM.
To his credit, Ijadimbola kept calm and appeared, to some degree, sincere: he really wished things hadn't gone the way things went and he understood neighbors were justifiably angry, and "sorry" didn't really fix it. At some point there was a bit of ice broken with the board, with one board member mentioning how a certain landlord who sits on the board (obviously Keith Reitman) could benefit by Ijadimbola's example.
More important than the apology itself is what it represents in the progress of the neighborhood, and the way a number of active citizens in North Minneapolis have used the power of blogging to tell their stories and express their struggles: Here is a wannabe slumlord who came, hat in hand, to meekly apologize for his wrongs. And why did he do it? He did it because Googling his own name turned up the details of his investment-gone-wrong, there fore all the world to see...including anybody who would want to hire him or promote him. This never would have happened if it weren't for Hillside Chronicles grasping the power of blogging and using it in the struggle to revitalize North Minneapolis.
Johnny Northside Dot Com recognizes that it is reasonable to treat Ijadimbola differently on this blog because of this somewhat sincere effort to apologize. I am in possession of video of the entire discussion, but I choose not to publish that video on Youtube nor to publish Ijadimbola's first name. (It will not be published in comments, either)
However, Ijadimbola continues to be the owner of 1551 Hillside Ave. N. As of today, the snow is only shoveled there because somebody called 311. The question is really this: if Ijadimbola is still listed as the owner, can't he DO SOMETHING to make the property better? Like, gee, get the snow shoveled and check its security more frequently?
Also, there are other guilty parties involved: some bank, and some no-account property manager. (Board member Denny Wagner made a point of getting the property manager's name, good ol' Denny!) These other entities deserve the wrath of Hillside Chronicles blog as much as Ijadimbola. Most heart rending of all is the comment by Haddy: this was a nice house.
Will a house that stood for 100 years meet its fate at the hands of a backhoe because Ijadimbola thought he was going to become a big deal property investor? I hope not, but things seem to be moving in that direction.
That failed investor needs to go put the word out on the investor communication wire that this is no longer the place to dabble in real estate investments by buying some low end house and renting to low end tenants and working with a low end property manager who finds drug dealers and prostitutes and careless fire-starting renters.
ReplyDeleteThe only real estate investors that will make it unscathed are folks like Chuck Leer, One fixer-upper at a time and your friend Jennie the Flipper, Tupino, Inc (stands for Turning Ugly Properties Into Nice Ones, yay Jennie)
and folks like the dozens of owner occupied rehab projects like Brian and Ray, etc.
But let the word get out: if you are a Keith Reitman style landlord, a Pamiko style scammer, a TJ Waconia mortgage fraudster, a Larry Maxwell identity thieve, if you are a Mark Langmade who is going to move in slummy tenants, bring down the value on a block and continue to snap up the bargains for more slummy tenants - north Minneapolis revitalizers will be all up in your business and we will be maneuvering to make our community a healthier more enjoyable, safer, cleaner and more desirable community and we will not be tolerating the predator disrespectful conduct that has historically taken place here.
Seems like there were a couple of other comments on here before, and now they're gone. What's going on?
ReplyDeleteAn odd occurrence has been noted on this particular post. Some comments disappeared. An anonymous commenter asked why, and NoMi Passenger stated that comments were removed because a certain person was no longer allowed to comment on this blog anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe longstanding JNS policy has been to allow virtually any substantive comment as long as it was not coming from a troll. Is the person barred considered to be a troll? Who is that person? What criteria was used to bar that person from commenting on JNS?
What were the comments that were deleted? Were they substantive?
This is rather odd, because in my conversations with John Hoff, who runs this blog, I have often heard him express his desire that blog posts and comments remain unchanged whenever possible, in order that readers can see what kind of discussion or debate took place over time. Why is that changing now?
OMG--the DRAMA! lol
ReplyDelete