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Silver Lakes resident
files lawsuit
Health department: Improvements made, but land still floods
By Harold J. Adams
hjadams@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
December
12, 2003
Some residents
of the Silver Lakes mobile home community in
Clarksville say they've had enough of flooded yards,
faulty sewage connections and dangerous electrical wiring.
One of them has
filed suit in Clark Superior Court against the California owners of the
property.
The mobile home
park, which has 332 lots off U.S. 31, has been cited repeatedly for numerous
violations by the Indiana State Department of Health over at least the past
15 months. The department threatened in June to call an enforcement hearing
after an inspector listed 35 violations at Silver Lakes.
The violations
included sewer connections that leaked or were otherwise faulty, numerous
electrical problems such as exposed live wires at electrical junction boxes,
and poor drainage that caused water to form ponds around and under the
homes.
The lead
plaintiff in the lawsuit is Katrina Embry, who has lived in Silver Lakes
with her boyfriend and two children for more than four years. Embry's
father, Wallace Pezzullo, who owns the home but does not live there, also is
a plaintiff.
Embry and her
lawyer say park management has done nothing to address her complaints.
But the general
manager of Tower Management, which is based in Pasadena, Calif., and owns
Silver Lakes, says things have improved in recent months after a change in
management at the park. And a health department official agrees that most of
the violations have been addressed satisfactorily, while adding that major
problems remain.
Poor drainage
is one of them. On Wednesday, Embry showed standing water in the grassy
areas between homes on her side of
Primrose Lane
as a result of overnight and morning rains.
The aluminum
skirting around the bottoms of many homes is marked by rust holes and mossy
green growth. The same was true for homes on the other side of the street,
where Shannon Hubbard has lived with her 9-year-old daughter for six years.
"We complain
and they don't do anything," Hubbard said.
Inside, she
showed how the tilt in her trailer requires her to use a string attached to
a pushpin on a wall to keep the door to her son's room open.
Darryl Shain,
Embry's boyfriend, complained about potential health problems connected to
the wetness. "We've got a boy with asthma, and I know mildew and mold can't
be good for him," said Shain.
Hubbard said
that "if they just fix the flooding problem that would be a major
improvement."
Attorney
Matthew Lemme, who filed the suit against Silver Lakes on Nov. 26, said he
has since been contacted by a dozen or more residents who want to join the
litigation.
The suit seeks
an amount of money, to be determined at trial, for damage allegedly caused
by the conditions. A judge must rule on Lemme's request for the suit to be
certified as a class action, representing the interests of all Silver Lakes
residents.
Alex Boggs, the
general property manager for Tower Management, said the company had not yet
seen the suit. Boggs said the company became aware of problems at Silver
Lakes only when it was contacted directly by the health department after the
June inspection.
Boggs said an
on-site manager of
Silver
Lakes, who has since been replaced, "was not communicating with us ... at
least in a timely manner." The health department had previously dealt only
with the on-site manager.
Michael Hoover,
director of the state health department's environmental health section,
wrote a Nov. 12 letter that said in part, "With the progress made in
bringing the park into compliance ... and the willingness of the new
managers to work to achieve compliance, enforcement action is being
delayed."
Yesterday,
Hoover noted that an inspection in November showed 12 violations at Silver
Lakes, down from the 35 cited in June.
The remaining
violations centered on the poor drainage and continuing electrical problems.
The inspection report gave
Silver
Lakes until Jan. 5 to correct the problems or face unspecified civil
penalties.
Boggs said
yesterday, "If there's a problem and we can remedy it, we will."
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