A major cleanup is coming to a trailer park on the west side of Kewanee, following City Council action Monday.
The council accepted the bid of $38,000 from Boers Excavating LLC of rural Kewanee for the job, which involves “Demolition and removal of 12 abandoned mobile homes, demolition of addition between two post-frame accessory structures and removal of numerous piles of debris throughout the property” at 829 W. Sixth St., according to a report to the council by Keith Edwards, director of community development.
Edwards’s report said the city has tried “numerous times” since 2018 to get a “responsible party” to remove abandoned mobile homes and clean up debris at the park.
Previous owner-operators of the site “have abandoned the situation and let the parks go back to the seller,” the report said.
Edwards added, “The current owners are abandoning the parks and have shown no efforts to correct the current conditions.” Those owners also took over trailer parks on Lake Street and Cole Street.
The city tried last summer to mow the mobile home parks, but “with the numerous piles of debris and lack of maintenance, we were not able to mow most of the land,” Edwards wrote.
A court order allows the city to hire contractors to clean up all three of the city’s mobile home parks; however, the contract approved Monday applies only to the facility on West Sixth Street.
The city has obtained state grants to pay for tearing down dilapidated homes. But Edwards reported, “The current grant funds cannot be utilized on a mobile home unless each home has its own parcel identification number, the trailer hitch has been removed and the trailer is attached to a permanent foundation. None of these requirements are met at any of the mobile home parks.”
