To the Editor:

On Sept. 24, 2015, The Altamont Enterprise published a letter sent by me decrying the commercial slums that we have in town. As a reminder to the current reader, these buildings are the Nedco pharmacy at Lydius Street and Route 146; the Governors Motor Inn on Western Avenue; the gas station at 1611 Western Ave.; the Rustic Barn, again on Western Avenue; the vacant lots at the corner of routes 146 and 20;  and the Bohl properties on Route 20 and Foundry Road.

There has been some progress albeit small. The “card reader” house at 1210 Western Ave. has been torn down and replaced by a commercial rental building. This was a private initiative done by the owner.

The Governors Motor Inn, due to the work of Lou Vitelli of Guilderland’s building department, has been cited and forced to clean-up. The owners were pressured to finally seek professional real-estate help and the property has now been formally put on the market for sale. The Governors is handicapped by a notice of tax foreclosure by the county for about $200,000.

The “gas station” at 1611 Western Ave. also has a notice of tax foreclosure, of about $135,000. There is no interest by the out-of-town owner in maintaining this property.

The Rustic Barn, at 4852 Western Turnpike, has been in tax foreclosure — at about $33,000 — for at least two years with no action taken to improve the premises. I suggested to the town board that the town, working with the county, spend some money to clean this place up and remove the demolition but to no avail.

Nedco was rewarded for its deteriorated condition with a reduction in its assessment a few years back.

The Bohl properties in the heart of Guilderland sit vacant. A proposed deal for purchase of the property died during the summer.

The vacant lot at the corner of routes 20 and 146 proposed for Cumberland Farms is currently in a slow-down mode. Hopefully, this project can come to fruition in 2018. This project will be very similar to the new Cumberland Farms built at the Curry Road circle in Rotterdam.

In 2015, the town of Guilderland passed Local Law 2 for the requirement that vacant properties be registered and performance bonds posted. This has had some effect but not nearly enough.

This is somewhat like a governmental push broom, which can function but can only go so far. What we need here in Guilderland is a “sledgehammer.” I proposed to the town board  in June and July that we require property owners to employ a night watchman (24/7 and 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.), at the property owners’ expense to guard these places.

Why should the town have to employ police or building officials to tend to these places? This would put the financial burden on the property owners or people with interest in the property such as lenders and, yes, even the county. (See above.)

The town board chose to ignore my suggestion, apparently content to allow out-of-town owners to foist these dumps off on us. I am asking the candidates for our town offices this November to make a forceful statement that they will seek out “sledgehammers"” to bring these buildings under control.  

If you like these dumps in our presence, we can continue to do minimal activity. We need a much harder look at this problem and we need candidates willing to make this commitment. Some progress was made since 2015 but more could have been done.  

John Haluska

Guilderland