At a news conference at City Hall Tuesday, council member Garry Bredefeld said he wants to prevent another tragedy like the recent one at Trails End Mobile Home Park. The mobile home park had been operating without a permit for months when a fire broke out on April 29th.
“There wasn’t any real enforcement or followup and unfortunately, three months after the permit was suspended, there was a fire and a person died,” he said.
The mobile home park’s permit had been suspended in January for a number of code violations that were not addressed. A 56-year-old man died in the fire.
At Thursday’s City Council meeting, Bredefeld will introduce an ordinance for the city to oversee mobile home parks, something that’s traditionally been the State’s responsibility.
California’s Department of Housing and Community Development oversees code compliance at thousands of mobile home parks throughout the state.
But the ordinance would put the city in control of overseeing 25 mobile home parks. Mayor Jerry Dyer spoke in support of the plan.
“Local control is always going to be better when it comes to certain types of enforcement efforts,” he said.
The ordinance calls for $300,000 for the city to hire four code enforcement officers.
“We have the resources available to us through our code enforcement and we have the expertise on board to be able to perform these inspections,” Dyer said.
If passed, it could take up to three months to take effect.
