Harris leads boot patrol

After a police-escorted tour Thursday through a troubled Waynesboro apartment complex, Councilman Mike Harris reiterated his plan to change North Commerce Avenue.

“It’s just going to be strict enforcement over there,” Harris said. “And a high presence of police.”

Harris joined Waynesboro police Capt. J.W. Oliver and City Manager Mike Hamp to assess the building that attracts police about once a day, according to police records.

Wearing his signature cowboy boots and yellow-tinted trifocals, Harris stepped through 260 and 280 North Commerce Ave.

Two men who’d lived at 260 N. Commerce were killed in a five-week span between May and June, sparking calls for action to rid the street of crime.

On Thursday, the city officials, wearing collared shirts and clean-cut pants, stood out along the rough-and-tumble street and garnered the attention of skeptical tenants.

Harris said talks with Bobby Jardine, who owns the buildings at 260 and 280 N. Commerce, soured this week when the landlord denied police permission to walk through hallways in the structures with a drug-sniffing dog.

“I find, purely on my interpretation, that he’s less than reluctant to willfully enter into a partnership to deal with these problems,” Harris said. “Actions speak louder than words.”

Oliver and Harris said Jardine’s role in working with police and the city serves as an important cog in fixing the overall crime problem at the complex.

“I would certainly encourage him to cooperate with the city,” Harris said.

Harris said Jardine told officials that he needed to consult his attorney before granting permission for the dog to work the hallways. The lawyer is on vacation, Jardine told officials, Harris said.

Jardine did not return phone calls Thursday to The News Virginian.

Iris Mullins, a representative of the Norfolk-based A & Z Apartments Association, said a highly intensified police presence could hurt a landlord’s ability to retain tenants.

“The landlord is between a rock and a hard place,” Mullins said. “If the community is sick of the drugs, then sometimes the community has to take the law into their own hands.”

Despite the difficulties, Mullins said landlords should not get in the way of a community cleanup effort.

“Never say no to City Hall,” she said. “I don’t feel sorry for him. He should have let City Hall come on in and do what they needed to do.”

Sitting outside 280 N. Commerce Ave., Serafin Olvera and Pedro Garcia watched as the officials walked through.

They pointed to the neighboring building.

“There are no problems here, only in the other apartments,” Garcia said.

Both men agreed, they liked the idea of a stronger police presence along the street.

“They are good,” Garcia said. “They’ll protect us.”

Near the end of his walk-through, Harris stood and watched a kid roll through the parking lot on a scooter.

He nodded to onlookers, but kept his hands on his hips.

“They don’t want drunks or drug-users or anyone else running around here,” Harris said. “The law-abiding that are living here don’t want that.”