One of my parks is a small 20 unit in central Minnesota split on south side (11units) and north side 9 units.
On the north side i have had to evict tenants for drug related issues and there are currently only 5 home occupied.(And connected to water)
Last winter the city was sending me astronomical water bills (February 700.000 Gallons for 5 homes) and when I got the Minnesota Rural Water Association involved the leaks magically disappeared.
From there it became a very strong suspicion that the water usage billing was an attempt to shut me down.
Last night there was a city council meeting discussing how to eliminate my park and it was then posted on the front page of the local newspaper. I was not notified nor invited to this meeting were my property was being discussed.
I will type the article 100% as written aside from redacting council members last names.
CLEANING UP OR ELIMINATING (CITY NAME) TRAILER PARKS DISCUSSED AT COUNCIL MEETING
The (City name) City Council’s second matter of business at its Monday meeting was the towns trailer parks. The one behind you, Scott started council member Brian to council member Scott.
“I was approached by a deputy to say there is excessive calls over there. He said most of their time is spent in (City name) is spent over there.
The deputy had thought that the city should consider increasing the amount of time it contracts with the Sheriff’s office but Brian said that wasn’t in the budget, “I said maybe what we could do - do we license that at all?”
City Clerk said no, but she believed that all trailer parks had to be licensed with the State of Minnesota.
“Is it something we can do?” Asked Brian. Because if we can license it we can pull it.
Council member Andy said, “well it would still be state licensed. I would like to see what the state license says because if there is something about excessive crime…”
Brian wondered if there was anything they could do with the park owner, particularly financial charges.
According to Ed (Kaskey) (Kaskey is one of my tenants) he owns four of the trailers now.” Said Scott “He’s (Kaskey) the problem.”
I did talk to the building inspector," said Brian, and he said each individual trailer has to be licensed, just like with my camper. He said if we pull those tags now they have to get out.
Andy asked, who’s to say they’re licensed? Does anybody ever check?
Scott asked, “How much trouble do you think we’d be in if we passed an ordinance that said no more trailer park in (City name)?
There is cities that have done that. If we passed an ordinance that said no new - the existing can stay, but once the’re unusable or unoccupied for X amount of time there can be no new ones. I would like to see us eliminate trailers in (City name); it’s not a good thing at all.”
Scott said, I think it depends on who’s running it, xxxx xxxxxxxxx, a previous owner got rid of the trash. Now this guy will let anyone in, Scott said, I think it’s a safety issue.
“'I talked to one of the guys on the drug task force and he said they used to go in there, clean them out and you’d be good for a couple of years.” Said Andy, adding that the problem was now continuous.
"We need to find out what our options are, said Brian. Scott said that they needed to get a hold of the owner and that the north side trailer park residents were burning all of their trash in big fires.
“Is there anyway we can start charging the owner for police calls?” asked Andy. “Say, your park get two police calls a year gratis; after that it’s charged.
Scott explained that there were 2 full dumpsters at the park, with another pile of stuff on the ground in between. He added, “Everyone’s got a hole in their bedroom to get out.”
I think we’d like to see all of the licenses for the trailers, said Andy. That’s a request we can make from the park owner.”
Another comment was made that the south side trailer park had been “cleaned up” and wasn’t seen as a problem like the north side…END
For clarification, on the north side there are 9 TOH with only 5 occupied and 2-3 of them have suspicion of drug activity. Known drug users or sellers have been evicted and i plan to get a call report from the Sheriff tomorrow because i feel this article is very inaccurate.
ALSO, the land the north park sits on is much wanted for an expansion of a “nicer” neighborhood
Any advice on how to tackle this city would be greatly appreciated
but wrong.