Manager Ticketed While the Housing Controversy Grows

By WRILEY NELSON
ONEONTA

The manager of the Town House Inn on Main Street in Oneonta was arrested and the city made a decisive move toward shutting down the lodging in an escalation of the ongoing controversy over emergency housing. Manager Premodh Vilakkupatthil, 43, turned himself in on Tuesday, September 5 after city police called him; he was issued a ticket for second-degree criminal nuisance. According to state law, a person is guilty of this misdemeanor offense when they knowingly or recklessly maintain conditions that endanger a number of people, or when they knowingly or recklessly maintain any premises where people gather to engage in unlawful conduct.

Town House Inn has been at the center of Oneonta’s emergency housing controversy. It was the site of a shooting incident on Thursday, August 31, when gunfire struck two vehicles in the parking lot. City Chief of Police Christopher Witzenburg reported a fatal overdose at the motel in recent weeks. There are currently about five Department of Social Services emergency housing clients at the inn. Town House sits on two parcels of land, owned by the Oneonta Masonic Lodge and by Alan G. John. The arrest comes just weeks after the Otsego County Board of Representatives approved an expanded DSS contract with Motel 88 on Chestnut Street in the face of reservations voiced by Common Councilmember Len Carson (R-5th Ward) and other city officials.

“We’ve had well over 400 police calls there in the last year,” Mayor Mark Drnek added.
He said that the city has initiated litigation with the inn and aims to shut it down. Drnek recently established the Council’s Safe Homes and Neighborhoods Committee in response to “growing community concerns regarding the related issues of the idle undomiciled and domiciled individuals who demonstrate in public their struggle with mental illness and drug addictions.” The committee is intended to holistically evaluate the causes and effects of Oneonta’s unhoused and underhoused population and to find lasting solutions. It includes Witzenburg, Carson, and Councilmembers Ed Overbey (unaffiliated-7th Ward) and Emily Falco (D-8th Ward).

“The closing of the Town House will be impactful, both on the committee’s work and on the community generally,” Drnek said in an email on Thursday, September 7. “While the removal of a problem property is a net positive, we will need to be aware of, and [plan further for] the impact that a displaced population may have.”

“The first of the Safe Homes and Neighborhoods Committee’s five points of action, the education and enlistment of the community in the enhancement of public safety, becomes even more of a priority,” Drnek continued. “The Police Department is already working on a one-hour course for the public that we’re calling ‘The Citizens’ Academy.’ We hope to roll that out in the next several weeks.”

Drnek has repeatedly expressed his opinion that emergency housing options outside city limits should be developed.

Vilakkupatthil was not held after the ticket was issued. He will be arraigned in city court on Thursday, September 28.