The process of cleaning up Kewanee’s three trailer parks continues, but city officials acknowledged Tuesday that progress has been slow.
The former Reecy’s trailer park on West Sixth Street, Reecy’s East on Lake Street and Southwind Mobile Estates on Cole Street have been in disrepair for years. The most recent owner of the parks has surrendered them to a bank that had made a loan on them.
The homes are in receivership, and the bank appointed the Shapiro Group, a real estate firm in West Bloomfield, Mich., as receivers.
Keith Edwards, the city’s community development director, has been trying to get someone to clear out dead trees and limbs, mow grass and weeds and do cleanup work in the parks.
Edwards told the City Council at their meeting Tuesday that he has made “a battery of phone calls to the Shapiro firm.” That company has to get money from the bank that holds the loan on the trailer parks to pay for cleanup work.
The cleanup effort has begun. A landscaping firm from Silvis was hired to take care of the trees and the mowing, and Edwards said they have been doing some mowing.
But there is still “a lot of work to do,” Edwards said.
The landscaping firm hasn’t removed trees and debris which are getting in the way of mowing, he said.
The firm is to “come in next week and spend however long it takes” to get rid of the debris, Edwards said.
Mayor Gary Moore said that by the time all the debris is gone, it might be time to plow snow.
Moore said he has been getting calls from neighbors about the condition of the parks, and told Edwards “I very much appreciate all your efforts.”
City Manager Gary Bradley said the fire department conducted an inventory of the parks and found that 38 trailers were occupied — about 25 percent of the spaces in the parks. They also found two sets of squatters in trailers, Bradley said.
He added that it is “likely” that some tenants who had been paying rent on their trailers have stopped doing so.
