ORANGE : Cleaning Up Community Is His Goal

Groups of teen-agers chat on the sidewalks and the warm smells of dinner cooking drift through the air at dusk in the Hoover-Wilson district in Orange.

With children playing on the narrow strips of lawn, the scene seems peaceful.

But come dark, many parents shoo their children inside because they say that the Hoover-Wilson area--the 27 crowded, dilapidated apartment buildings on Wilson and Hoover streets west of Glassell--isn’t safe.

Residents of Hoover-Wilson say they see drug-dealing, prostitution and graffiti, but they don’t move because the rent is low.

“When you get somebody emptying a .38-caliber revolver in front of your bedroom window, you better call it a bad neighborhood,” said George Popescu, who has lived in the area for 12 years.

Just across Glassell Street from Hoover-Wilson is another neighborhood, one where young middle-class families and retired couples live in neat houses with well-manicured lawns.

Dore Teichman and his wife, Cindy, live there and they are angry about the situation across the street. Dore Teichman has spent the past two years trying to get the city to clean up Hoover-Wilson.

He says he is tired of listening to gunshots and sirens, tired of seeing drug deals go down in the streets and graffiti scarring the walls.

Now, he’s moving, but he’s not giving up the fight.

Teichman plans to make a plea to the Orange City Council tonight: Do something about the Hoover-Wilson district. Now.

Teichman said he will ask the City Council to declare the Hoover-Wilson area a blight and make its improvement a high priority; put a barrier between Glassell and the alley that runs between Hoover and Wilson; prohibit the construction of high-density apartment complexes; adopt a zero-tolerance policy against owners of buildings, fining them for any violations, and adopt the type of property-maintenance ordinance that Anaheim uses.

If he doesn’t get action, Teichman said, he plans to begin a recall effort against the mayor and possibly the other council members.

“It’s not a step that I take lightly, and it’s not a step that I’m real proud of, but I don’t know what else to do,” Teichman said.

But others suggest that patience is required.

“An area like that takes years to deteriorate. You’re not going to see it turn around overnight,” code-enforcement officer Susan Tully said.

She and other city officials say the city has been making an effort to clean up the area.

The city has stepped up code enforcement and police enforcement in Hoover-Wilson and has formed a task force to deal with the problems, City Councilwoman Joanne Coontz said.

Since police arrested 18 suspects on drug-related charges several weeks ago, residents concede that the streets have been a little quieter.

“It’s still out there. We know it’s there, but it’s gotten better,” said Marion Bacon, who manages six apartment buildings there. “I’m sure the word is out that there’s undercover narcotics officers working the area.”

Tully said the city is preparing a case for prosecution against a property owner in the area whose buildings have severe structural problems.

Bacon said many problems are caused by owners who don’t want to maintain their properties. Her owner cooperates, she said, and makes whatever improvements she suggests.

Another problem is overcrowding.

“We see 10 to 15 people per unit sometimes,” Tully said. “Some of the apartments have large closets, and we’ve found people sleeping in closets. In some, there’s no furnitures, just bedrolls.”