Subject: Setting the Kingspark Story Straight!
First of all, the elected board of the Kingspark Residents' Association, Inc. would like to thank the Peoria Journal Star for its coverage. The number of people we have contacted who weren't interested in helping us, I suppose because it concerned a mobile home community, was disheartening. Several statements, however, made by Mr. Foresta in your recent story were misleading, false, or need clarifying.
Mr. Foresta is quoted as saying, "I didn't have the authority to say 'rent freeze.'" Perhaps, then he shouldn't have said "this is what I'm authorized to offer you" when he negotiated with our committee. He presented the rent freeze as a done deal, and that can be verified by Lisa Gravat, Kingspark's manager; and a fine, decent person who has been doing her best to re-establish a feeling of community here at Kingspark. She was at the meeting.
Mr. Foresta's comment that "Nobody else is complaining" might be true from his viewpoint. After all, he has only been connected with Kingspark a little over a month, and is apparently, quite ignorant of the long history of sly maneuvering and outright intimidation by the outgoing management. If anyone cared enough, and had the time to interview the huge number of Kingspark residents with legitimate complaints and concerns the results would be stupefying. The general consensus, outside of Kingspark, seems to be that we are angry about a rent increase via metering the water. How petty! Rent increases are a part of life. What we are angry about is that since Colorado Real Estate Investment Co. bought Kingspark, the rent has increased every year, while amenity after amenity has been taken away. The only reason the laundromat is being put back in is due to the community outrage after management quietly removed every machine without informing residents. We found an empty room when we went to wash our clothes.
As for the low turnout at the meeting, cited in your column, we didn't find out about management's reneging on our agreement until Friday (July 23). I promptly made up a flier announcing an emergency meeting for Tuesday July, 27, and had 400 copies made. Saturday morning, Carrie Peterson and myself distributed them throughout Kingspark using the community news boxes (which, at the negotiation meeting we were given full permission to use). Saturday afternoon I received several calls telling me that someone was going around and removing the fliers from the boxes. Sure enough, when we did a drive-around on Sunday all of the fliers were gone. We did what we could on Monday to get the word out, but there's only so much you can accomplish in 24 hours, especally when you're standing on a picket line in stultifying heat!
Before we ever started picketing, we engaged legal services to make certain we would not be violating any rules of Kingspark. All of our picketing has been done on land designated as public domain. We have never blocked the entrance, stood on Kingspark's property while picketing, or blocked traffic. We are not stupid. We are fighting for basic improvements in the living conditions at Kingspark, and breaking laws is not how we operate. The county police can verify this. They have been called several times, and have found nothing illegal being perpetrated. We believe that that is why Kingspark has resorted to scare tactics by issuing eviction notices.
Are we scared? In a word, NO!
We would advice Mr. Foresta to check out articles 4 & 5 in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the State of Illinois. While I'm sure our picketing is an annoyance and a hindrance to sales, Mr. Foresta cannot violate the state's constitution, nor can he dictate what happens on public land. This is America, right?
On Monday, the 26th I arrived at the picket line around 2:15pm, and that is when I heard about the eviction notices. We can see the office from Southport Road (where we assemble to "apply for redress of grievances"). I saw Mr. Foresta arrive. I approached him and asked him where my eviction notice was? In front of a witness (John Genovese Sr) he replied, "You haven't broken any rules. Why would you have an eviction notice?" Twenty minutes later, once I was picketing, a maintenance man was sent to hand deliver my very own eviction notice. How I went from "you haven't broken any rules" to "Your continuing and repeated violations ..." in twenty minutes is a mystery to me. In a town built on labor and unions, this is an affront to every man or woman who has stood on a picket line, and a clear violation of the constitution as well as state statute 765 ILCS 745/16.
As for those receiving eviction notices, Mr. Foresta fails to mention those affected, other than those named in the paper. John Genovese Sr. is a fine man, a senior with one of the most beautiful and well kept homes in Kingspark. His wonderful wife, Edie, is also on the eviction notice. Mike and Mardee are also seniors. Is this how we treat our elderly in Peoria? Carrie Peterson is a deeply religious woman who saw wrongs being perpetrated and tried to do something about it. Her husband Jerry, a good man who has helped me out personally without charging a cent, and their wonderful little 3 year old boy are also victims of the eviction notices. I am an elementary education major at Bradley University, and the primary care-giver for my disabled mother whom I live with. She hasn't been out of bed since February, 1998, when she came home from the hospital, yet her name is on the eviction notice. Exactly what rules she has repeatedly violated remains unclear. One would think she'd have to be able to get out of bed first, but medical condition aside, Mr. Foresta wants her out in 30 days. So there you have it: a group of determined senior citizens, an all American family, a man hoping to teach children in economically repressed areas when he get's his teacher's certification, and a bedridden 60 year old woman. My, but what a motley lot we must be for standing up for our rights.
This has all been building for years. As management's tactics became more repressive, insulting, and inequitably applied, as the very reasons we moved to Kingspark were taken away one by one, as rents went up annually, and as we came to understand that we were little more than lot numbers in an accounting system for a corporation based in Colorado - not people with dreams and rights, we organized.
I guess, if you have to pick the moment when we recognized the time to stand had arrived, it was probably the metering of the water. Kingspark has an old and decrepit water delivery system that is far below the code required, if it were a public utility. They will tell you otherwise, but I have lived here since September '95 (when my father passed away), and in that time the water has been shut off for repairs to the delivery system over 30 times. That averages to nearly once a month, though admittedly, the shut-offs have decreased in frequency over the last year. We weren't even given notices until the health department warned them that there had been too many complaints, and that by law 24 hour notices and boil orders were required.
Even now, there is no personal notice. When the water is going to be shut off for repairs, a large piece of plywood with a hand painted notice on it is errected at the front and rear entrances of the park. If you don't happen to go out that day, you find out about the water shut-off the hard way; when you turn on your tap the next day, and nothing comes out.
When Kingspark decided to pass on the cost of water to residents, they had the opportunity to do it the rght way. They chose the cheap way. They brought in an out-of-state metering firm, Aquameter.
At an open community meeting in front of over 50 people Tom Westing (the outgoing regional supervisor) has admitted they (Kingspark) were having problems with the meters, and that some of the connections were faulty. Did they stop billing until the problem was taken care of? No, every month the water bill came, and management demanded payment. We were instructed to include the amount billed for water with our lot rent, and submit it as a single payment made out to Kingspark. Mr. Foresta openly admitted at the negotiation meeting that he had seen the man responsible for reading the meters setting in his truck filling out the form. Hard to read a 2" square meter when you don't even leave your vehicle. This admission of faulty service can be verified by Lisa Gravat, Carrie Peterson, Mike Mitchell, Mardee McLain, and myelf - Larry Brewer. The bills, however, kept coming.
Unfortunately, this is not an atypical business practice for Kingspark, and THAT is why we have organized. If Mr. Foresta thinks he can scare us off with an evicton notice that won't hold up in court, he is sadly mistaken. We have, however decided it is no longer wise to stand without allies. We are joining forces with the Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois (M.H.O.A.I.). We have already sent off enough applications for membership to make it illegal for management to attempt to keep them out, and they are offering advice, support, and counseling.
We are in the process of contactng AARP and the ACLU, and legal counsel has been retained. There is little actual legislation to regulate the business practices of manufactured home community owners, but David brought down Goliath, and we think we can affect a change for the better for all of the residents of Kingspark, whether they are currently members of our association, or not. That is our goal.
There are about 425 homes in Kingspark, and Mr. Foresta's citing of 1,200 people living here fails to mention that a significant number of those are children. As for his comment "We don't care if they picket ...," would he care to explain why we received a letter from management dated June 25th threatening to sue us (K.R.A., Inc.) for lost revenues, and claiming that sales were down over 30% from the same time last year due to our picketing?. We feel that their threat of eviction has little, if anything, to do with the welfare of the residents and everything to do with money. For the over 200 people who have signed our petitions, and the ongoing outpouring of support from the majority of residents (definitely not all, but a decided majority) we will not give up the fight until management reinstates the entire negotiated agreement, in writing wth new leases to back it up.
Larry Brewer - Secretary, K.R.A., Inc.