After decades of watching the greater Putnam Historic District fall victim to crime, vagrancy and blight, neighbors and business owners are coming together with a newfound energy to reclaim their neighborhoods. 

The call themselves “Friends of Putnam.” 

Led by President Joe Nezbeth, the group formed in August after a new pair of homeowners experienced their unofficial welcome to the community. 

Shortly after moving into their house on Woodlawn Avenue, Chris Gookin and Mandy Jennings awoke to an intruder in their cellar. 

In their neighborhood, it’s almost a rite of passage. 

“They kind of joke around a little bit, like, ‘oh, welcome to the neighborhood. You got broken into,’ and it just makes me really mad because it’s not right,” said Jennings. 

When their friends and neighbors found out about the encounter, Jennings said what was then only being discussed actually came into fruition. 

“Lori and Jay Wince (neighbors and owners of Weasel Boy) were talking about wanting to start up with a group,” said Jennings. “They are friends with Joe Nezbeth, who is the president.”

The group learned that they are frustrated with a lot of the same things.

“The decline of the neighborhood. The increased presence of the homeless. The crime has gone up in our neighborhood. Drug abuse has gone up. Prostitution across the street from my home, right on the corner. It’s a sad sight to see,” said Nezbeth. 

For many of the area’s homeowners, significant investments have been made into their houses only for the blighted properties to beckon criminals to the community. 

“There’s houses you can just walk down and look at with absentee landlords that don’t even live in the area that let everything fall apart, and it’s like, well aren’t they getting fined? I’m putting in all my time and energy and money to do the right thing, and then I get broken into,” said Jennings. “And that’s what everyone around here is so frustrated with. We follow the letter of the law, we pay the fees and we do all the right paperwork, meanwhile it just seems very other people that other people aren’t held accountable.” 

After a few initial meetings, Friends of Putnam gained enough momentum to invite City of Zanesville officials to hear their concerns and find some common ground to take action. 

“We can’t do it by ourselves. We need the help and guidance from our city officials, and we’re going to lean on them to come up with solutions to our problems, such as the homeless, prostitution, drug abuse, infrastructure,” said Nezbeth. “We completely understand that it’s not going to be an overnight process, but we are building dialogue, if you will, and working as a team, not us against them, to achieve our short and long term goals.”

The group hopes that by working together, piece by piece, they can begin to achieve greater goals. 

“We can’t expect to solve the homeless problem. We can’t expect to solve drug addiction. But if it’s some small way we can make this better than we found it, then we win,” said Jennings.

Already since their meeting with Mayor Jeff Tilton, Police Chief Tony Coury, Fire Chief Jeff Bell, Public Safety Director Keane Toney and Tim Smith of Building and Code Enforcement, there have been small “wins” for the community. 

Toney has been patrolling the streets and coordinating efforts between citizens and the police and fire departments. 

Along Muskingum Avenue near Harrison Street, neighbors were able to identify the people illegally dumping trash in the underbrush along the river and have them clean up their mess. 

At the former gas station on the corner of Jefferson Street and Putnam Avenue, Assistant Fire Chief Doug Hobson gathered volunteers to clean the area of debris. 

Coury has walked the streets and identified a starting point for a community cleanup — the woods at the end of Washington Street that have become a dumping ground for items such as clothing, tents, furniture and other unwanted rubbish. 

Another instrumental official involved in the movement is Muskingum County Assistant Prosecutor John Litle, who is not only approaching the issue from a law enforcement standpoint, but also a community member living in the Putnam area who wants to make a change. 

“In large part, what I’m doing is being part of the community watch and the community group, not being a prosecutor,” said Litle. “I mean, I’m trying to do both. My job is to get some of these things done, that’s my job, and then the other part, I’m trying to be part of the community to try to fix those things.”

Thus far, Litle has used his resources to coordinate with the railroad company to make the area along the tracks behind Woodlawn Avenue a no trespassing zone. Anyone caught on the railroad tracks or in the adjacent railroad property will be arrested. 

He has recently prosecuted a known pimp, Raymond Johnson, who assaulted a prostitute’s client. 

“You can choose different ways to try and approach that, and our approach is, you’re going to prison. If there’s people down here using drugs and we get the chance to get them out of here, then that is the number one goal,” said Litle. “We don’t need a bunch of people from God knows where just invading every nook and cranny and committing crime.”

Litle has also been working to end chronic problems that violate the City’s nuisance abatement ordinance, a policy that he helped write. 

Each time emergency services are needed for violations of the ordinance, such as drug activity or prostitution, that call is logged and kept on record. 

“The police might not come out and actually do something right then, but it goes in as a call for service and it’s evidence that we can use in the future to abate a nuisance, which is a whole lot easier than trying to build a criminal case on someone for stealing bikes or just being a drug addict,” said Litle. “That’s not going to keep anybody away, but you can go in and just basically make them move out.”

It’s a tool Litle hopes the newly formed community watch group will utilize.

“We’re going to be watching our community. We’re going to make sure the drug dealers are being paid attention to a little bit more, and we’re going to make it a little bit harder for them to get the drugs to the people that rely on the drugs,” said Gookin. 

But before that happens, the Friends of Putnam want to make themselves known. 

Thursday evening, they will be walking the entire stretch of Putnam Avenue* between Maysville Avenue and Sixth Street to send a message to the community that they are taking action.

“We’re just trying to get attention, and what better way to get attention than to have a big group walking down the street,” said Gookin. 

The walk begins at 6 p.m. at 3i Holsters, located at 923 Putnam Ave., and ends at the Sixth Street Bridge. 

“As we’re going through, we’re going to be looking at properties that need attention in all different ways, if the grass needs cut or something like that or if there’s trash, and just make a presence known to everybody around that we’re here to clean this area up, in a positive way. We’re not going to strongarm anybody,” said Gookin. 

The morning of Oct. 19, the group is organizing a community cleanup in partnership with the City of Zanesville.

Friends of Putnam is also currently filing the paperwork necessary to become a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with hopes to eventually receive donations for items such as weed trimmers and gas for lawnmowers as the group continues on its journey to improve Putnam. 

“Before we get to that point, we have to show the city we care. So that’s what we’re trying to do now. Have a community walk. Come down here. Show people we care. Hand out some fliers. See if we can get some more participation and let people know that we’re watching what’s going on,” said Litle.