a GUT feeling????????? ;>)

Gunslinging at its finest. There are other avenues to look at for this project that would not require loans,especially if there is any substance this structure has ties to the Civil War, things I have suggested repeatly in the past, however, we seem to already have "experts" who know everything. There are 2 individuals I would love to address the issue challenging their positions on the LC and have them removed however there is no effort or support to do that, too many people are still stuck on personal issues with each other because of what they believe in instead of respecting their views even if they disagree, so that always gets in the way.

What if it turns out to be a chicken coop?

what gunslinging? the documentation is not there on this building, or is there some partial/anecdotal evidence which is not enough to qualify for historic grants? just what does the city's preservation historian have on the structure? i know that there are endless reams of paperwork involved in the applications, but i have never heard of a line labeled "hunch".

Gunslinging is a figure of speech. We have a few individuals attempting to make decisions on what should be done with this instead of trying to help the property owner. They solicit no other input from anyone and have not come up with any substantial evidence. To me, what is happening is this structure has no historic contribution in its present state and because it is in a district, they are trying to find ways to control what should or should not be done. Wrong answer. Loans are not the solution no in this economy. I made several suggestions six months ago to the people involved on how to address this issue, but to date no one has contacted those organizations to help with this. We are trying to "wing" it on our own and again, not engaging the public for support or to help with research. Repair orders do not solve anything, if the property owner cannot fix this, give up the property to someone who can or take it down. It is an eyesore now.

If it is found it is a chicken coop, OMG I can see where that will go. There will be a new cause in St. Joe, save the chicken coop, someone will create a group, "Friends of the Chicken Coop" and try to dictate how it should be like it was "back in the day", chickens and everything, there will be a debate about how the roofs and fence should be, some will complain about the chicken noise, there will be a big fight in City Hall at meetings, personal attacks will take hold, there will be a cause to save the chicken coop as a museum, lots of "questionable" information will be passed around to try and gain support for each cause, and than here comes the court battle.
True Wild West fashion :) Yes, Heritage I am going on a tangent, have to once in awhile, see what I can stir up and who I can get wound up. :)

"If it is found it is a chicken coop, OMG I can see where that will go. There will be a new cause in St. Joe, save the chicken coop, someone will create a group, "Friends of the Chicken Coop" and try to dictate how it should be like it was "back in the day", chickens and everything, there will be a debate about how the roofs and fence should be, some will complain about the chicken noise, there will be a big fight in City Hall at meetings, personal attacks will take hold, there will be a cause to save the chicken coop as a museum, lots of "questionable" information will be passed around to try and gain support for each cause, and than here comes the court battle."

Galvins comes to mind......

STCC!!!!

wildwest..... the real pity is that this is the project that mr. desplanques has chosen to put his weight behind. how about the property ( which belongs to a LC ) in the same district which is in the exact same state of "construction" which it was in two years ago? it looks like a haunted house. are they just going to wait until the porte cochere just falls off? the suggestion was made to have the LC come up with a list of perhaps 100 homes to consider as sacrosanct......was it ever acted upon?

I agree with that property should be given attention instead of the one there seems to be so much attention on now Heritage.

Behind the scenes there has been alot of time spent on this and it has accomplished nothing. The idea of the 100 homes was tossed around a little over a year and a half ago and to date, it has not been acted upon at all. Believe it or not, I was a supporter of that direction at the time, and I really wished they acted upon it. Some of my present opposing opinions of how things are now may have changed then. The thought process with that was very simple, to address the real issues facing the districts with contributing properties that are being neglected by the owners, not hammer and restrict good people are trying to make a difference.

Philosphy is simple, help people, especially the ones that are doing everything they can to progress, not hinder and address the ones that are not. I include Wythe Tootle Mansion as part of falling into this category. At the present time in my view, the present LC is not even interested in this at all or truly interested in helping those that are trying to do good things. I make no apologies for my views with the LC, and stand by what I have to say. I will continue to challenge the present philsophy of doing business until I see more support to help. If they really cared, the issues of property neglect would be addressed, as well as the landlord issues and other things. But we are on the control aspect and once a month there are hearings that help no one, interpetations are continually argued, voting becomes burdsensome, and again in my view no one really wins.

StJoeMoe: I am with you, WTCC!!!!!!!The new cause!!:) Just kidding.

i have to say that the people who have problems in filing/applying for LC consideration are not helped or served by the city in that process very well. applicants are supposed to be shown how to apply, given help in doing so, and be advised of other acceptable solutions if their application is clearly not conforming. alternatives which are ironed out before the hearing are necessary to the process, and certainly make the whole matter more palatable. how can there be a problem......the LC now has its little oversight committee? i thought that was the whole point of overthrowing the entire process a year ago.

I totally agree that people are not helped very well with this process. The whole goal should be to assist in getting a project through the process and approved to progress forward, not holding people back. It should not be a problem for this to be accomplished, however, there just seems to be so much resistance to it. It was exactly the point which is the main reason I support an overthrow of the present process.

I find it perplexing that to this day, there are people out there who still dont talk to me and will throw "rocks" at me because of my view with this which I have another opinion of what I think of that, but I will not voice it here. I even recieved a subtle threat from the present LC chairperson that I should back off, which I addressed behind the scenes. Those type of things including personal attacks in the public forum over opposing opinions without respect also do not solve any solutions regardless of frustrations.

I found it perplexing that a group of people living in the districts recently supported a project that got denied twice, and after the second denial on the appeal, they pretty much threw a fit and began with the personal attacks. I addressed with that group that approach was not productive at all. With this it came clear that there is a call for change but certain groups do not want to do it properly or are afraid to challenge anything for fear of maybe losing the ability for some tax incentives or some other "status" reason.

There is way too much time and effort spent on this one structure.. There should be an effort to encourage purchases of existing properties that recently fell into foreclosure. More will follow as time goes on if there are not solutions address issues of economics and cost issues associated with these. The city cannot properly maintain a public mansion so how is it expected that private ownership should be able to. structures. There has to be change with a process that addresses economics, assists property owners, and respects "due process". If not, than the districts will always struggle. To truly claim the fame to having local districts, theys need to be on a level many are throughout the country, clean, maintained, an initiative to put more public money into keeping the public right of way areas pristine, an attraction people from all over can admire, and command a positive presence. Some areas look like airstrikes and not enough pressure placed on landlords and others who do not maintain properties. The districts should look like areas of Westport or St Charles and be national treasures that bring in people who will admire and spend money, thus increasing the tax coffers and in return providing more funding so we can get those potholes and sidewalks everyone complains about fixed.

Or we can continue to spend time and effort on a shack where maybe "chickens out of the past" once roamed.

Regarding the comments made on July 20, 2008 at 7:19 pm. You state, ‘how about the property (which belongs to a LC) in the same district?’ Please allow me to set the record straight, a Landmark Commissioner does not own the property at 716 N. 6th Street,’ public records show St. Joseph Preservation Inc. as the owner. Also, neither of these properties are located in a historic district. You may request these records through the Freedom of Information Act. Please, next time you post on this site at least request the public records so you can get your criticisms right.

If you have any questions please feel free to stop by my office and ask. The City posts the LC meeting and Dangerous Building Hearings as called for in the 2004 Missouri Sunshine Law. You are all invited as they are open to the public.

My research in brief.

John Logan had attended the Kentucky Military Academy and the University of Louisville Medical School. John Logan moved to St. Joseph in 1857 when he was 21 years old and worked as a night watchman at the Buchanan County Life and General Insurance Company. Research at the Buchanan County Courthouse verifies that John S. Logan and his step-father James L. O’Neill did own slaves (Deed Book 27/page 181 & Deed Book 32/page 405). Other records show the house was constructed by Logan in 1855. After further research at the County Courthouse and Public Library I did find that John S. Logan owned lots 23 & 24 where the house at 605 Hall is located as well as lots 28-32 and 41 – 45 in Eges 1st Addition as early as September 12 1864.

I posted the Dangerous Building Hearing notice on the Yahoo Groups Preservation News site and received 15 responses from local preservationists, either in writing or verbal, all in favor of saving this structure. I do not recall ever receiving this type of response to save any other building. Frankly I am surprised at the venomous responses aimed at me for trying to save this structure. The previous Preservation Planner Robert Myers had shown me this building in 2005. At that time he believed that from the construction techniques and architectural features that this building is more likely to be a slaves quarters than any other alleged slaves quarters in town.

Remember once a building is gone it is gone forever. I would rather err on the side of caution when dealing with a building that could prove to represent this Civil War/Slavery era. This structure in and of itself is not very impressive, but if it proves to be the last standing slaves quarters in the City of St.Joseph it represents a historically irreplaceable structure.

If anyone would like a copy of my research on this building to pick up where I left off please let me know.

In retrospect I agree the 'gut feeling' remark was speculation and a poor choice of words and I do not mind if it is stricken from the records.

actually, mr. desplanques, in this instance i was referring to a house on hall street. there is no porte cochere at 716 n. 6th street. however, i did notice in the case.net that on july 23 the small claims against the LC chairperson in regards to the house at 716 n sixth street was found to have merit. the monies which were used to restore that sixth street house were part of the save our heritage grants. i seem to recall someone being removed from the LC because the city saw them as not being a good enough steward of the save our heritage monies?

So this is only information that "preservationists" are privy too so they can comment on?

The general public has every right to comment on this and when this finally reached the general masses, we now have different opinions in this issue. As to the dangerous building hearing on this, reality is many in the public are not aware and those who may wish to attend these hearings have other commitments during the time period hearings are held, believe it or not, St Joseph has a huge population base that does not work a 9 to 5 job. I can accurately present at least 5000 work odd hours in this town.

There is nothing that I see "venemous" that has been written in this forum. What I see is very robust debate with differences of opinion, good ideas, and challenges to some existing circumstances and a present course of action out there with a little sarcasm and sense of humor.

This "cause" is being challenged a bit in this public debate forum and in my view it is a good thing. While I believe the history behind this is interesting and compelling, there are more pertinent issues that need to be addressed that are being ignored.

My concern here with this is we are at the same point we were 6 months ago, no progression is being made to the property and now the idea of loans come up. My confidence level with the property owner fixing this structure is not there. This loan idea if approved will come most likely from tax dollars, and that issue alone the public has every right to comment on. Where are the Civil societies and groups in all this? How come there is nothing coming from them? Why are they not taking this cause up? And why is this effort not going into levels of making the property a museum that ties St. Joseph to the Civil War and making it an attraction for the public to learn about?

To comment briefly on the 716 6th street property. The situation there is a mess and has been for some time. The present course of action taken does have lots of merit and it needs to be resolved.

Past decisions on this could have been evaluated more carefully and some kind of verification that the board members at the time were in support of some of the things that took place with this transaction by the city. This did not occur and as a result there is evidence to support decisions were made by one or more select individuals who did not follow the non profit corporation bylaws to push for the organization to take on this project and signed off on it without proper board member and president approvals.

I know of at least 2 pieces of paperwork that the president at the time of the transaction never signed off on, but were passed through the process. And than the contract award was another issue altogether

To me, in the world of historic preservation matters, it is issues like this that need attention and resolution. We have an LC chairman who is involved in making decisions on property owners now in a dispute over Save our Heritage funds as it relates to a non-profit organization.

Lets address this, resolve it, than take on some real issues that have been talked about previously on here,than take on a Civil War project. And reach out to the public to gain support, tell the public why and make a presentation that encourages support.

The apparent turmoil (at least coming from two people) about this issue puzzles me. It seems to be grounded in dislike for someone rather than the facts of the case.

A rear wall of this structure began to collapse several months ago. A nearby resident complained, making the City aware of the situation. As with any case, slave quarters or chicken coop, the City responded by sending a notice and working with the property owner to get the building repaired.

Eventually, when no progress was made, the building was scheduled for a hearing. By the time of the hearing, the owner had secured the building and taken steps to reduce the urgency of the situation. Consequently, the hearing was continued, twice, to allow additional time for research into the history of the building and to see if the new City budget would include funds for historic preservation grants.

I think everyone at the hearing understood the intent of Mr. Des Planques comment--there was a good chance the building may have been a slave quarters so rather than take a chance of demolishing a building with that type of history, let's give the owners a chance to save it. I suspect the people critical of the comment also fully understand it and would have been just as critical had Mr. Des Planques said nothing and the building had been ordered demolished.

The fact that this structure was addressed at an administrative hearing has nothing to do with it potentially being a slaves quarter--it had to do with a deteriorating building that had to be addressed. Its' potential history was one of many factors taken into account at the hearing.

As for the other building in question (on Hall Street, not 6th Street), the owner has been sent notices of violation, been issued citations, been fined. It is continuing to be addressed. The length of time it is taking is due, in part, to the fact that the City does try to "work with" property owners to help them, or at least give them adequate time, before ratcheting up the pressure if they do nothing to correct the violations.

It would be nice if the City had sufficient funds to help all owners of all historic buildings, but I doubt that there would be a lot of public support for devoting significant tax dollars to assist people who are able to afford to live in grand mansions like that, when so many taxpayers struggle to survive in much more modest abodes. With the constant bickering among various elements of the preservation community (a division that goes back many, many years--long before Mr. Des Planques), I don't see much hope for building public support for more historic preservation funding anytime soon. Sad, but true.

I find it fascinating this is going to be defended by hinting there is some deeply rooted "dislike" for an individual. That is a wrong assumption. We have every right to voice our concerns and I love how we are going to now attempt to analyze personalities. If all this info that is being presented now about the property was out there to the general public 6 months ago, I am confident there would have been more comments.

I equally perplexing is the conversation on here was going on for almost 2 weeks before it got some attention after other issues that were thrown out on the table got brought up.

I have nothing against the historical research or anyone who was involved, I find it interesting. What I have issue with is how this was used to justify an extension with very little to go on and how much time and effort was put into this when there are some other property owners out there who are doing much more and could have used this kind of support in the past. Property owners are expected to show much more evidence as a general rule when it relates to these issues and I have seen so many times good people get literally hammered by commissions and at hearings because there was not "enough" presented.
The research itself I think is terrific stuff on the historical significance and in my view if it is truly what it claims to be, than there should be an effort to make into an attraction or museum. Take that path, and believe me, you will find alot of support throughout the state for it.

The issue on Hall Street, so it has been addressed for a couple years, what has progressed? Why is the owner still sitting on a board that makes decisions on property owners if he continually gets cited for things he expects other property owners to do? Same deal with Sixth street. Nothing against these 2 individuals at all personally, but as long as these issues are out there, in my view they should not have the ability to make those decisions until they get their own issues resolved.

I disagree with the public support issue. If presented effectively, with class, and with a clear mission statemen, I believe the public would support an effort to preserve if it was sound, had a plan, and within that plan had the vision finding ways to bring in huge amounts of tax revenue into the city. Case in point, Cape May, NJ accomplishes that and 20 years ago, they were in the same spot St Joe is in now with derelict structures. They managed to get the Fed heavily involved and the whole city is on the National register and continues to get large grants annually.
Lastly, I said 2 weeks ago on here I wanted to see what could be stirred up and who could be wound up. Mission accomplished. :)