CLEVELAND — An investigation has been opened by the Cuyahoga Environmental Crimes Task Force against a homeowner they believe illegally dumped garbage and trash in his own neighborhood just eight lots from his home.
The case under investigation in the Cleveland—Slavic Village—Forrest City neighborhood involves homeowners George and Rebecca Zatik.
The dump site is located right along the boarder of Cleveland's Washington Park golf course and was reported by community activist Edward McDonald.
McDonald showed News 5 evidence and prescription paper work in the trash bags that contained personal information from the Zatik family.
McDonald took pictures of the dump site with his drone video camera and then contacted Cleveland Councilman Tony Brancatelli about the neighborhood hazard.
"This is the place that we live, this is the place where our kids play, this is the place where other kids play," McDonald said. "That you would just have the audacity to just take your trash and dump it a block from your house? That's crazy."
News 5 contacted George Zatik at his home, less than 300 feet from the dump site.
Zatik admitted the trash and junk were his but said he hired a clean-up crew to remove it from his property and blamed the clean-up crew for the illegal dumping.
Brancatelli said the Zatik property has been a neighborhood issue for many years.
"This has been an on-going problem, the house down the street is 20-thousand dollars behind in taxes, they've had debris, and they've been a problem for many, many years, Brancatelli said. "We turned it over to the environmental task force, the environmental task force came out, they opened a case and we're going to see prosecution from it."
McDonald urged residents to be diligent in reporting illegal dumping.
"We see this a lot, where people dump and they're dumping in specific areas and nothing, there's no follow-up, there's no reporting, there's nothing going on," McDonald said. "People think that once they make a phone call or they drop an email that's it, okay my jobs done. But what you have to do is be persistent, you have to keep on it."
