The wait was over for dozens of Somerton residents on Sept. 8 as they finally got the opportunity to vent publicly about two neighborhood problems.
A standing-room-only crowd filled the Walker Lodge on Southampton Road for the first Somerton Civic Association meeting since before the summer. Many attendees wanted to complain about a purported nuisance house on Kelvin Avenue, as well as the new speed humps on Southampton Road.
A local police commander, a supervisor from the District Attorney’s Office and officials from the Department of Streets took turns responding to criticisms and questions.
“You’ve got the District Attorney’s Office’s attention and Captain Gormley’s attention and the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” said Assistant D.A. Andrew Geneven, supervisor of the Public Nuisance Task Force.
According to Geneven and Capt. Michael Gormley, commander of the 7th Police District, neighbors have been complaining for a while about bothersome residents and visitors, along with suspected drug activity in a single home on the 14000 block of Kelvin Ave. In response to the complaints, an undercover police narcotics unit placed the site under surveillance and recently obtained a search warrant. As a result of that, officers raided the house and arrested one man on drug-related charges. That arrest led to a secondary arrest in North Philly.
The Somerton man has multiple prior arrests, including two pending criminal cases, Geneven said. He remains in prison in lieu of $100,000 bail.
“The Narcotics Unit says (the dealers) have been shut down,” Gormley said.
But neighbors said that they suspect drug activity is still occurring at the house, with a lot of people coming and going.
In the midst of the flying accusations, another man stepped forward identifying himself as a resident of the house and the son of the owner, who does not live there. The resident stated that he has had some contractors visit the house to give estimates on roof repair work.
“It was never a drug house, not a (crystal) meth factory,” the resident said. “Maybe two cars come a day. You can’t say everybody there is doing drugs.”
The resident, who said he grew up in Somerton, conceded that his house “was becoming a hangout,” presumably for friends of the people living there. Authorities have yet to investigate if the house is licensed as a rental property, Geneven said.
The prosecutor explained that his office has procedures for seizing nuisance properties, but several prerequisites must be met. One trigger is an arrest involving felony charges. But generally, there has to be evidence of a pattern of behavior.
If police make a second or third drug-related arrest, “Then I can send a bunch of agents over to board up the house,” the prosecutor said.
The second controversial issue during the meeting involved seven new speed humps on Southampton Road between Roosevelt Boulevard and Endicott Street.
Residents complained that the city installed the speed-control devices without surveying or notifying the people who live there. In an informal show of hands, many residents indicated they want the roadway humps removed, while others indicated they’d like fewer of them.
Other residents argued that the city put the humps in the wrong place — that they should have been installed farther west on Southampton Road directly in front of the Somerton Youth Organization’s ball fields.
Richard Montanez, the city’s chief traffic and street lighting engineer, said that the humps were installed earlier this summer as part of a pilot program. Since then, the Streets Department has changed its protocols. Specifically, a community approval process has been added.
For now, the city intends to review the existing configuration on Southampton Road for a year. Changes may be made after the 12 months, which would conclude next July.
Montanez also fielded a question about how the city plans to plow over the humps after winter storms. The official explained that snow plows are able to go over the humps. As for ice, salt-based treatments can melt that, he said. ••
