There are tire troubles on Cleveland's east side and neighbors are fed up. Piles of rubber cover their sidewalks.
After spending months trying to get the tires cleaned up, the neighbors called 5 On Your Side Investigators.
Jacqueline Beckette is tired of all the tires dumped on Worley Avenue.
Beckette told us the tires had been there for months.
"And I have been calling the city,” she said. “I have been calling them and everybody just keeps passing the buck."
And that's not all. The 40 tires were collecting trash, beer cans, and transmission fluid. Beckette even approached city crews in charge of trash pick-up.
Yolanda Gilmore-Brown lives on Worley, too.
"This is just nasty," she said. “They making the street look very bad!"
Unfortunately for that neighborhood, Worley isn't the only problem. We found a couple of tires on Collier, a few more north on East 66th and then we found a big mess right around the corner from Worley at East 66th and Lansing.
We asked Beckette how she felt about people using her neighborhood as a dumping ground.
“Oh, my goodness! Makes me feel horrible!" she said.
The Cuyahoga County Land Bank owns a property which had the 40 tires. After we contacted it, representatives sent trucks to take those tires away immediately.
But what about the others we found? We contacted the city. Officials said they sent two different crews and they "didn't notice any additional tires in the neighborhood."
Right after that statement was sent, we went back out and the same tires we found were still there.
"We would like our friends and family to come and we would like for our street to look nice! Period!" Beckette said.
UPDATE: 2/5/18 - The city of Cleveland got back to us about the tires saying it had cleaned up most of them. They said tires at E.66th and Lansing would need a hauler to remove them and they would do that when the weather breaks.
However, this afternoon, we checked and there were still tires at some of the same spots we reported. In fact, two tires that were side-by-side on E.66th that we told the city about, one was still there in the same spot. The city crew took one and not the other.
Here’s the original, complete city of Cleveland’s response:
We sent representatives from both the Environmental Crimes Task Force (ECTF) and Public Works to the area yesterday but did not notice any additional tires in the neighborhood. If there are specific addresses, please let us know. As you already mentioned, the county has remediated the issue at 7009 Worley. We encourage citizens to report these acts –especially when they see them occurring – which increases the likelihood we will catch, prosecute, and stop the perpetrators. The number for residents to report illegal dumping to the ECTF is 216-621-1234.
Latoya r. Hunter
Assistant media relations director, social media & digital integration
Acting director of communications
Office of the mayor
Cleveland city hall
601 lakeside avenue, room 227
Cleveland, oh 44114
