In a recent series of exclusive stories, SooToday has told the community about a local landlord who owes the city a whopping $381,000 worth of fines and other penalties for a long list of fire and building code infractions.
A numbered company that lists Jim Brogno as president has racked up fines at three different properties: 314 Albert Street East, the John Wesley Apartments at 342-346 John Street, and 634 Connaught Avenue.
As SooToday reported last week, Brogno recently sold the Albert Street house for $270,000 — but did not use the proceeds to pay down any of his outstanding fines.
The city of Sault Ste. Marie has since retained a collections agency to go after the cash.
Mayor Matthew Shoemaker stopped by our SooToday studio this week for an in-depth conversation about his first six months in office. We asked him about this particular landlord — and whether the city will ever see a dime of that money.
“We’ve sent it to collections,” Shoemaker said. “Whether or not this particular fine will ever be collectible, I hope it will be, obviously. More importantly, the violations that led to the charges in that case were fire code violations, and having a building that is a fire trap is a greater risk to the entire community than collecting this or collecting that. So ensuring that building stays boarded up — or sold and repurposed into usable living space that is safe — that is where we ultimately want to be.”
“We want to see buildings that are safe, usable, and can make someone some money,” the mayor continued. “So trying to collect the fines is important, we ought to be doing everything we can — including whether it takes going to court to try and collect them — but we don't want to collect it and allow that situation to continue while we’re trying to enforce the fire code or the building code or whatever it is. We want to make sure that the place is not inhabited, and then we'll take the appropriate actions.”
You can watch the full video of the mayor’s interview HERE.