Update from Jodi Johnson, GSMOL Chapter 1252 President, Youngstown Senior Community
ED. NOTE: For some of the background on this, see a previous story posted here.
We learned July 1st that a closure letter to the city of Petaluma had been served on the city by park owners Three Pillars (Youngstown) and Harmony (Littlewoods) on June 19th.
Their intent, without a filed application, is to begin the closure process.
We learned this from the press, which should never happen again.
The city of Petaluma is investigating to see if that was legitimate or if an application is necessary before they would hire a relocation consultant to begin this process. The city confirmed at both July 1st city council meeting and July 15th meeting that they stand for preserving our mobile home residents as per their revised ordinances and their continued direction.
We also became privy (after the city council meeting of July 15th where we brought 53 residents) that the city attorney of Petaluma wrote a letter stating that attorney fees can not be taken from arbitration awards per their own ordinance.
We used this letter in our appeal filed July 16th.
We filed our appeal for Youngstown on July 16th, Case number 24CV04188.
(Park Owners did file an appeal in July 15th in the civil/family law area of superior court. They were given a different judge with a pre-conference date of Nov 19th.)
We only learned about their appeal from the city on July 24th when they received the summons. Now the cases will be merged and the court will determine which judge will be assigned.
Park Owners’ appeal is against 5 parts of the arbitration decision.
Here are the five areas they are appealing the decision.
- Vega
- MNOI mistaken award too low and should be with reserves
- Appealed the use of the revised ordinance vs the non-revised one
- Debt service
- They want 100% of attorney’s fees
Littlewoods owners (Harmony), after getting a $0 award in arbitration, served another increase and arbitration the very next day for $662.
The city will deny this, as it is within the 12-month calendar and a second fair market increase application is not allowed.
The following day after that was when the closure notice took place from park owners.
Capri, purchased by Harmony (also silent partner Three Pillars) 2 months ago, filed for an arbitration for 12 affected residents. I was able to get the funding to bring Bruce Stanton on to represent them. Unfortunately they coerced 90 percent of residents to be on long term leases.
Since they were coerced after AB 2782 cut off period of Feb 13, 2020, and [notifications] were in English and not Spanish, their primary language, we are seeking to get those rescinded and let the residents fall under the arbitration.
This application for arbitration is the craziest application Bruce and I have seen. It states that they did not do an appraisal on Capri or expert testimony on Capri so they are using Littlewoods (a different park) for their increase since it was stated in testimony that Capri is better than Littlewoods. Comparable only method used.
The federal lawsuit against the city of Petaluma re in part AB 2782 was dismissed in its entirety.
The Senior MHP Overlay lawsuit against the city of Petaluma had 2 parts dismissed under a motion of demurrer and 2 parts on fair housing and HOPA will move to discovery.
The city feels confident they will prevail.
We held an interfaith peace vigil here at Youngstown after disclosure of the closure letter to comfort our battle-fatigued residents. It was a beautiful hour of advocacy.
The city of Petaluma is holding a closed-door [session] August 5th council meeting in regard to all of these issues and how they can help us.
We are pursuing ownership and potential eminent domain seizure from the city.
We are actively trying to fundraise back the $26,000 we took off the backs of residents that could not afford it.
This fight is far from over.
They underestimated our ability to fight with facts and our ability to build the right relationships with respect with our elected leaders.
We have a Facebook page for fundraising called Faces of Youngstown and Littlewoods- Please follow us.
Our winged hearts that Life on Art had us paint in therapy were photographed, and packets of 8 will be sold to fundraise money.
