From:
To: City Council
Cc: Neysa Hinton; Diana Rich; Sandra Maurer; Jill McLewis; Stephen Zollman; Subject: Regarding Agenda Item #7 Amending Chapter 9.28 of the Municipal Code Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2023 11:12:12 AM
Dear Sebastopol City Council members,
I am the President of the Fircrest Homeowners Association. I wish to address the idea that the current owners are good stewards of Fircrest Mobile Home Park (MHP). Below are a few issues that I feel should be mentioned. The situation has improved with our current site manager during the last year or so.
For this letter, I am using the term "owners" to reflect decisions possibly made by management companies such as Evans.
Even though this is a Seniors Only park, our clubhouse has never had air conditioning. Which does not seem right when so many of our elderly residents are vulnerable to the heat. Also the clubhouse does not even have internet service. Which these days is almost a necessary utility.
When I moved in, the roads had a lot of cracks and ruts. They were not addressed until after an elderly woman tripped on the street and received a concussion. There have been a couple areas patched since then. But the roads continue to be much worse than any other MHP I have visited. Large puddles develop in places. Except for a couple of areas, the main parts of the road that look nice are where PGE dug up the roads to install new electric lines to our homes.
The last time all of the roads were paved was in 2004 or so. When that occurred, the owners made the residents pay for it. This generated a big lawsuit that cost the city of Sebastopol substantial fmoney.
Long term residents tell me that the residents only lost the case due to inaction and a couple technical oversites, They felt that this was more of a maintenance issue and not a capital improvement which gives the owners the authority to charge residents. Maintaining safe roads is not a "capital improvement". After moving to Fircrest im 2018 I paid an additional fee with my rent until June 2020. This totalled over $300 for the privilege of having paved roads that were resurfaced about 13 years before I moved here.
When PGE dug up the streets, old electric stands used when the park metered our electricity were supposed to be removed from our property. As of now every resident still has a useless Meter stand in their already small yard. Sometimes in a central location that severely limits the uses of that portion of the property they rent from the owners.
Also, the owners tried to upgrade the failing street lights by powering the new lights with PG&E lines paid for by residents. (Those residents were offered $10 a month each to cover their electrical cost.) Several of the residents objected to this idea and the far-reaching legal paperwork they would have to sign.
Lawyers were consulted and the idea was dropped.
I hope the Council considers these ongoing maintenance issues as part of their justification for reducing the size of the rent increases to our vulnerable residents and continuing to not allow rent increases when a property changes hands.. It does not appear that the owners have been reinvesting much of their revenue into improving the Park.
Respectfully,
Roger Sherman
President, Fircrest Homeowners Association