Mayor Lovely Warren’s campaign has called rival Democrat Jim Sheppard a “slum lord” for owning a vacant and derelict city property. Sheppard is answering that what he owned was his first home, which he says was trashed by “tenants from hell” after he was unable to sell it.
Shortly after he announced his campaign last weekend, the mayor’s campaign committee said through a statement that during his time as Rochester police chief, Sheppard paid his fines on the property but “his ethical and moral obligations were far from met.”
In an interview to the “Democrat and Chronicle,” Sheppard responded saying he owned his first home at 18 Malvern Street off Lake Avenue before he was chief of police. He tried to sell it after moving in 1993, and getting no takers, he rented it out through a management company. Sheppard says those managers didn’t keep him informed and after some good years he ended up with “tenants from hell” who trashed the place. In 2005 a city inspector asked that the house be boarded up.
Sheppard says he never walked away. He paid the mortgage, fines and taxes but let the house stay vacant after it was twice broken into and the copper piping stolen. He finally sold the house in 2010 for $7,000, or half of what he still owed on it.