When Mary Hill talks about the former Masonic Lodge building in Hobson, her eyes well up with tears, and she appears to be overcome with emotion at the impending fate of the building her family has owned for decades. Holding a folder full of paperwork that seems to lead inexorably to the conclusion that the old Hobson landmark is headed for demolition, she pleads for help saving the building.

Hill says her crusade is about her desire to save the heritage of the historically African-American community, where her ancestors made their lives as watermen. In her estimation, the city of Suffolk is out to destroy the memories of that heritage by demolishing the old Masonic Lodge and other buildings in the village.

The Masonic Lodge, located beside Crittenden Road, has been used variously through the years as a meeting place, a school and a shop. But for the last 30 years or so, it has stood vacant. During that entire time (and for years prior to that) Hill and her family have owned the building. And during that entire time, there has been little or no maintenance performed on the building. Its deterioration is easy to see from the outside, even beneath a coat of primer paint that went up after Hill received the latest list of the building’s code violations from the city.

Therein lies the problem for most of those who consider Hill’s plight objectively. Hill — who has been embroiled in battles with the city over several dilapidated buildings in Hobson, including at least three that have already been razed after code violations were left unaddressed — has a long history of failing to take care of her buildings and allowing them to become both unsafe and a public nuisance.

With a range of complaints from the city about the Masonic Lodge building, in particular, Hill could at almost any time have started the process of restoring the building at least to a level that would have preserved it from further deterioration. Perhaps she could not have afforded to replace the roof, for instance, but it would have been a simple, inexpensive thing to put up house numbers or paint, or replace broken glass or any number of other small repairs that appear on the list of code violations along with bigger issues that call into question the building’s structural soundness and its safety.

Instead, Hill has allowed the building to slowly fall apart, only raising a hand to repair it when threatened with its demolition — and then without doing what it took to get the various permits that were required.

Instead, she cries “New Jim Crow racism” and alleges that the city has aggravated her “post traumatic slavery syndrome,” whatever that is. In the midst of all that silliness, Hobson continues to be torn apart by the controversy.

If Hill really wants the fine people of that village to be healed, she should stop tearing at the scars that represent a conflict so far in the past, and she should set an example by standing up and taking responsibility for her own actions, as well as her inaction.