Longtime East Lawrence resident Leon Kimball is under city mandate to to fix up his property at 1231 Pennsylvania St.

A longtime resident of East Lawrence, known for having babysat many of the neighborhood’s children decades ago, is now under city mandate to fix up his Pennsylvania Street property, and he’s being offered the assistance of the community, including some of those kids — now grown — whom he helped raise there.

To his next-door neighbor, Lane Eisenbart, and East Lawrence Neighborhood Association board member KT Walsh, Leon Kimball is a beloved neighborhood fixture.

“He’s from a huge and multigenerational Lawrence family,” Walsh told city commissioners last week. “He has raised so many children; he’s done handyman and carpentry work all over the city and county, but especially in East Lawrence. Know that we all care about Leon.”

Leon Kimball

The city has been working on and off with Kimball for years to arrange property improvements, city staff said during a Lawrence City Commission meeting in April.

Code violations and a new complaint led city staff about one year ago to tour the property at 1231 Pennsylvania St. They found that the home and several small sheds were deteriorating. There was salvage, dead trees and other debris in the yard.

Commissioners in April declared the property to be dangerous and unsafe and ordered it to be immediately repaired.

Kimball worked to clear his yard, but the city said last week it had seen little progress on the property since September, and Kimball is now at risk of having the city take over the cleanup. City officials then could charge Kimball for the clean-up costs, which could be significant.

Kimball’s representative, Lawrence attorney Shelly Wakeman, went before the City Commission on Dec. 15 to ask for a 90-day extension for Kimball to remove debris from his yard and to demolish his home.

Once commissioners ensured the property and all of its buildings were secure, they unanimously voted to grant the extension.

Now, Kimball has until mid-March to complete the repairs — and the neighborhood is hoping to help.

Walsh, a board member of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, and Eisenbart, the association’s coordinator, said there’s talk at many of the group’s meetings about ways neighbors can assist Kimball in the cleanup.

“In my opinion as his neighbor, I love him and think he’s a great guy,” Eisenbart said. “I would hate to see him disadvantaged by a city process. What can we do? We don’t really know. We’d like to organize something.”

Walsh proposed the neighborhood association take over the demolition of the home.

Wakeman said that likely will not be a possibility because of safety issues, but there may be other ways neighbors can help, and Kimball would take them up on any offer. She said some of the kids he babysat have attended the meetings about the property.

“No matter what happens, I know they will continue to be supportive of him,” she said.

Kimball is currently gathering bids from contractors. His plan, Wakeman said, is to soon take down the home and maybe rebuild in the future.

Though Kimball no longer lives at the home on Pennsylvania Street, it was where he took care of the neighborhood children years ago when their parents were at work. It’s also where he became “a collector,” Wakeman said, and would stash items such as pots and pans and silverware — “anything to get you back on your feet or set up your home.”

“This is a hard decision for him,” Wakeman said. “He’s owned this property for a long time. It’s hard to say goodbye like this, I think, for anyone.”