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Brownsville Vows To Take Back Town From Developer

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Oct 7, 2008 9:10 pm US/Eastern

Brownsville Vows To Take Back Town From Developer

Reporting
Andy Sheehan
BROWNSVILLE (KDKA) ― For years, leaders of one Mon Valley town say their community has been held hostage by a developer who bought up most of the downtown -- then let the buildings rot.

Now, Brownsville is vowing to take their town back.

Ernest Liggett began buying up buildings in Brownsville 17 years ago with promises of redevelopment.

Instead, his buildings have decayed and the town has floundered.

Now with the help of Fayette County, Brownsville will use one of the ultimate tools of government to take their town back.

Fiddle's Restaurant is one of the only working businesses left in downtown Brownsville -- where the entire business district is one long row of decaying, boarded up stores.

People here say all their efforts to breathe life back into the town have been thwarted by one man, Liggett.

"He owns everything," said Thomas Barry. "So, what can you do about it? I'd say the towns held hostage by him and his legal teams."

Liggett purchased 144 Brownsville buildings beginning in the early 1990s hoping to transform the place into a gambling mecca.

But when riverboat gambling failed and Indian tribes took a pass, he let the buildings deteriorate to the point of condemnation.

Code Enforcement Officer Don Baugh has issued 90 citations in the past three years and fined Liggett more than $100,000 but Liggett has paid only a fraction and is appealing the rest.

In the meantime some of his buildings are collapsing.

"Our kids, our families will lose their history because some of them can't be saved now," said Baugh.

"We're prepared to use the power of eminent domain to assemble the properties and alleviate the blight in the community," said Andrew French of the Fayette County Development Authority.

The town and Fayette County say they're going to literally take Brownsville back from Liggett, asking the courts to order that Liggett surrender 22 of the buildings under eminent domain.

"It's unfortunate that we as the borough's agent have to step and take this action but it's a force of necessity," said French. "Somebody has to."

French says Liggett has ignored months of requests to open the buildings for inspection and not surprisingly he did not return calls from KDKA.

After years of unfulfilled promises, Brownsville Councilman James Lawver has one message for Liggett.

"Get out, get out of town," he said.

Now, if and when Brownsville and the county do get these buildings back, they say many will have to be demolished.

However, they plan to save as many as they can with a redevelopment plan of their own.


(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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