State Sen. Dave Koehler and Peoria County Board member Jimmy Dillon attended tonight’s meeting of the Kingspark/Four Seasons Neighborhood Association, and did they get an earful.

I know for a fact they Koehler is familiar with the complaints residents have at the place, but left the meeting with the feeling that Koehler was disturbed the litany of abuses he heard.

“You are good citizens, You pay your rent. You don’t deserve to be treated like this,” Koehler said.

“This is not acceptable in any other community in the state of Illinois and it’s not acceptable here.”

I’ve addressed many of these complaints before. They include water cut offs, poor quality water, residents being overcharged for water, mobile homes that don’t have air conditioning installed, refusal to trim dangerous limbs that threaten homes, no water meters, levying “fines” than can be paid only in cash, the firing of the park’s line security officer, threats to levy fines or evict residents who complain, black mold in abandoned homes and others, etc.

Some residents say that the lack of water hampered firefighters called to put out a fire that destroyed a mobile home last month. Koehler noted that new apartment buildings are required to have sprinkler systems. He plans to talk to the state fire marshal to look into whether laws need to be “tightened up.”

“In a community like this, why shouldn’t there me working hydrants,” he said. Residents told him that the because so many of the homes to not have shut-off switches, the hydrants must be opened and the lines drained before a new home is installed or removed or when repairs are performed.

Koehler notified residents that Value Family Properties (the Oklahoma-based company that owns Kingspark and Four Seasons in Bellevue) failed to submit a “plan of corrective action” by 5 p.m. today. The company was cited for more than a hundred violations by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Terry Nelson of the Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois (MHOAI)

Koehler will meet with the IDPH, and invite them to a special meeting of the neighborhood association, set for Thursday, Feb. 7.

The state senator told me after the meeting that he’ll be speaking to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office to discuss whether placing the mobile home parks in receivership is a possibility. Considering the state’s sorry financial situation, I’m not sure that would be an improvement.

Koehler also said that many of the complaints he heard discussed were not addressed by Illinois, and are instead matters of private business relationships between residents and the mobile home parks. The state won’t even have the power to issue fines until after new laws take affect on January 1.

I had never met Jimmy Dillon before. We chatted after the meeting, and the county board member told that’s he’s going to talk to the sheriff’s department about the crime situation. Communities like West Peoria actually contract with the sheriff’s department to serve as municipal officers, which isn’t an option for Kingspark. Losing our full-time security officer did a lot to undermine residents’ confidence in the relative safety of the park, as most residents believe the park’s owners will not rent to anybody, without background check, as long as they can pay a hefty deposit and the first month’s rent.

Dillon also told me that the Limestone Township Fire Department station located across the street from the park on Southport Road was once the most heavily manned station in the department. This was due to the fact that the park was once home to many volunteer firefighters.

UPDATE: All three Peoria television stations sent a reporter and photographer. WMBD 31’s report is here. I’m not seeing any posts yet from the other two.

UPDATE 2: WEEK is up.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.