The Story Behind An Empty House
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
I wrote about my 51st birthday last week and how time seems to move faster the older we get.
Case in point, the Looking Back photo in last week’s edition showed the renovation of the Herald building. I confidently reported that 20 years had passed since the project was completed.
It didn’t take Mickey Howley long to send a correction.
“It was 10 years ago,” Mickey texted.
“Feeling old enough without the press,” he joked.
Fair point.
The other irony in last week’s paper involved a photograph I took to accompany a story about the city’s proposed vacant property ordinance.
The picture showed an abandoned house on Martin Street, one of an estimated 250 vacant structures in Water Valley. It happened to be the closest vacant house to the Herald office, making it an easy choice for a photograph.
The house belongs to Marco Gooch.
When Marco walked into the Herald office Monday morning, he wasn’t happy.
At first glance, it would have been easy to assume he was upset because his property had been featured in a story about abandoned houses.
That wasn’t it at all.
Marco owns several properties on Martin Street. Over the years, he has purchased and demolished two houses that could not be salvaged. He is currently renovating another house and has invested heavily in both that project and his own residence.
In other words, he has spent considerable time and money trying to improve his neighborhood.
What bothered him was not the photograph.
What bothered him was what the photograph didn’t show.
For more than a decade, Marco has been asking city officials to address issues he sees every day on Martin Street. Overgrown vegetation. Clogged drainage ditches. Trees hanging over the roadway. Litter. Overgrown public property. Infrastructure concerns that he believes have been ignored through multiple administrations.
He reminded me that he has been raising those concerns since long before the current debate over vacant properties.
The uncomfortable part of the conversation was realizing he was also right about something else.
Marco has stopped by the Herald office more than once over the years asking me to come look at Martin Street and write about the conditions there.
And I didn’t.
Not because I disagreed with him. Not because I thought the issues weren’t important.
Like a lot of things in a small newspaper office, it got pushed to the back burner.
There was always another meeting, another deadline, another breaking story.
Until Monday.
As we drove up and down Martin Street looking at drainage ditches, overgrown lots, leaning utility poles and a dead tree standing near the roadway, it is obvious.
Whether you agree with Marco’s conclusions or not, one thing is clear: he cares deeply about his neighborhood and has invested far more than just words into trying to improve it.
