“It’s time to take the gloves off.”
That was how Mayor Gary Moore summed up his feelings about how the city government should proceed with efforts to get the three trailer parks in Kewanee cleaned up.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, the council received a report from community development director Keith Edwards on the progress of cleanup efforts at the Reecy’s Trailer Park site on West Sixth Street, Reecy’s East on Lake Street and Southwind Mobile Estates on Cole Street.
A bank that holds the mortgage on the three sites has hired a Michigan real estate firm to manage the trailer parks. That firm hired a landscaping company from Silvis to start removing dead trees and limbs, and mow grass and weeds.
Edwards said the contractor brought in a 30-yard trash container and put some trash in it. But there’s still enough trash on the grounds to fill several more containers, he said.
When he inspected the sites recently, Edwards said, he was “pretty disappointed” with the progress that’s been made on the cleanup.
The council also discussed a water bill for the three parks which has grown to nearly $200,000.
There are still 36 occupied trailers in the parks, and those residents apparently have been paying their water bills to the bank that holds the mortgage. That bank earlier asked the city to forgive all or part of the backlog, saying that would make it easier to sell the properties.
The council quickly rejected that idea.
City Attorney Zac Lessard said it’s unlikely the city will be able to collect what’s owed for the water, since any lien the city might place on the properties would be “subservient” to the mortgage on them.
The problem is that each park has one water meter, instead of separate meters for each trailer. City Manager Gary Bradley said the city couldn’t afford to install individual meters — unless its application for grant funds for park cleanup is approved.
Moore didn’t specify what the city should do to get swifter action on cleaning up the parks. But he said, “Our current path is leading us nowhere.”