Pressured Klotz starts Lynn repairs

LYNN – Code enforcement officials in Lynn and in Utica, N.Y. are pressing slumlord Timothy Klotz to make needed repairs to residential properties he owns in both cities.A Utica municipal court judge on Monday gave Klotz one week to register four properties for fire safety inspections. Klotz was in court to answer charges that he failed to register vacant two-story homes at 1224 Green St., 956 Bleeker St., 1006 Jay St. and 1008 Brinckerhoff Ave. for fire inspections in that upstate New York city.Klotz also owns 102 James St. in Utica, a building that burned on Sept. 20, killing four people.Like the others, the fire-ravaged property had not been subject to a safety inspection. Klotz later claimed he had sent a check to the Utica Fire Department to pay for an inspection but the check was never cashed. Fire officials disavowed any knowledge of such a check, according to the Observer-Dispatch newspaper in Utica.On Sept. 28, Klotz was ordered by Utica officials to pay $1,500 in fines for not registering three other properties at 1215 Whitesboro St., 1500 Oneida St. and 723 Roberts St. in that city.On Sept. 30, members of the Lynn Inspectional Services Department’s Multi-agency Task Force went to 93-95 Green St., a dilapidated six-unit, wooden apartment house built around 1900 and owned by Jacqueline Realty Trust, which lists Klotz as trustee. Inspectors found many code violations, including unsafe porch landings, missing stairway handrails and an absence of stairway lighting – all considered threats to life safety.”We gave him seven days to make the emergency repairs that were of primary concern to life safety,” said Roger Ennis, the Lynn’s chief building inspector. “The fire alarm was working, but there has to be safe exit out of the building.”According to Ennis, Klotz appointed property manager Richard Sokolow, with a business address at 282 Washington St. in Salem, as his authorized agent. “They did comply with the order to make the emergency repairs,” he said. “We gave them an emergency building permit on the spot.”Other code violations, although not life threatening, include excessive storage in the basement – boxes, furniture and antiquated equipment accumulated over the years, as well as a pile of debris containing asbestos.”That is in the process of being cleaned up,” Ennis said. “We have a report from a licensed contractor in the file. But even after that is completed, the building needs considerable rehabilitation, both to the interior and exterior.”Sokolow told city officials that Klotz is soliciting contractor price estimates to make the needed repairs and may attempt to sell the property.”There has been a lot of work done on the older properties down there on Green Street and it has given the neighborhood a nice feel. I’m sure the neighbors would be grateful if this property were renovated. Every time we’re down there for an inspection, the neighbors are out on their porches, watching,” Ennis said.Klotz’s Green Street property is also subject to health code violations, which prevent the sale or transfer of property.”In the past, the goal has been to bring the property into compliance, not to hold up a sale,” said Ennis. “If we have a current buyer who will accept responsibility for what needs to be done, we would not stand in the way of a sale. We’d rather not see them play the shell game, which forces us to track down the ownership in order to get anything done.”As for the required repairs, once contractors are hired and building permit applications are filed with the Inspectional Services Department, inspectors from building, health, fire, electrical and plumbing will revisit the property.”Considerable renovations will be required before the property is up to code,” Ennis said.Klotz lives in the Utica suburb of New Hartford and maintains a Marblehead post office box as a Massachusetts address.The four victims in Utica – three men and a woman – were tenants. The Utica Fire Department released an audio tape recording of