Sewer pipes leak at Shady Acres

Sito Negron

Tuesday, May 4, 2004 | 11:37 a.m.

Even as health authorities were forcing major repairs to the Sky-Vue Mobile Park a month ago, an inspection of its neighbor, Shady Acres, revealed 30 trailer homes with leaking sewer pipes and other problems including water supplied with garden hoses.

The Shady Acres manager was not available for comment. Work on the park, at 1001 N. Main St., at the corner of Washington just north of downtown, had been ongoing for about two weeks, a resident told the Sun on Sunday.

The release of the Shady Acres report comes in the days after officials for the county and city pledged to step up their investigations of local mobile home parks. Shady Acres came up during the Sky-Vue investigation, and officials also are focusing on two other parks owned by the Sky-Vue owners. The other two parks were previously the property of the owners of Shady Acres.

Shady Acres is owned by Shady Acres LLC. According to corporate information available on the Nevada Secretary of State's Web site, Denise and Steven Karp, who sold Sky-Vue about two years ago to its current ownership group, are members of Shady Acres LLC.

Health officials were not available to comment on the Shady Acres report, which deals only with an investigation conducted April 7. Records of previous inspections at Shady Acres were not immediately available.

Las Vegas city officials also are reviewing Shady Acres. Records of the city review were not available Monday, but Neighborhood Services Director Orlando Sanchez said over the weekend that his office would be looking into the park.

Sanchez said his inspector, Jim Shadrick, "just did an informal drive through today, and met with the owner, who will bend over backward to get everything up to code."

Without being specific as to what type of work was going on at Shady Acres, Sanchez said Shadrick was "very pleased with the amount of work going on there."

Las Vegas Communications Director David Riggleman said in the case of Sky-Vue, city officials took the owners and managers, Sandi and David DiMarco, at face value when they said they would fix up the park.

"This situation (Shady Acres) would be the same. We'll give the owner the opportunity to fix issues," Riggleman said. "If they're fixed, great, if not we'll have to evaluate that like we did at Sky-Vue."

The issue of how to deal with Sky-Vue has touched upon multiple departments in multiple jurisdictions, and has brought to light gaps in the system meant to prevent housing from reaching such a state.

Different investigators looked only at pieces of the park, but nobody put together all the varied reports that could have provided the impetus for an earlier intervention that may have prevented the park shutdown.

Because of the issues identified at Sky-Vue, local authorities have said they plan to step up inspections at mobile home parks.

"We'll pull together some of the departments that are affected and ... we'll conduct a review of what's to be done," Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said. He said that would be coordinated with other jurisdictions, with a meeting at the end of the week to determine a plan.

"Initially, I suppose there may be an inventory, and then an assessment of the parks to see if there's anything we need to do," Pappa said.

Other issues were specific to Sky-Vue. Clark County is reviewing the use of vouchers by the park and state authorities are investigating whether park residents worked without proper compensation.

The DiMarcos also own College Inn at 4615 E. Lake Mead Blvd., and Trailer Vegas at 3975 E. Lake Mead. Both trailer parks are under review by the Clark County Health District, which fined David DiMarco $10,000 for allowing sewage to leak into a trench alongside College Inn.

Officials would not release records regarding Trailer Vegas, saying that the investigation there was ongoing.

The health district also will appear in court this morning to ask a municipal judge to force the DiMarcos to address the health and safety issues at Sky-Vue. Although the park has been closed, "there are still issues that need to be resolved," Jennifer Sizemore, the health district's spokeswoman, said. "Whether they decide to reopen it or not, the gist of what we will be saying is these issues need to be taken care of regardless."

Those issues include leaking sewer pipes, water supplied by garden hoses, and generally dilapidated living conditions.

Las Vegas city officials spent thousands of dollars to move residents, approving $40,000 recently. It is expected they will ask for more to pay back Clark County Social Services for vouchers that gave former Sky-Vue residents temporary housing.

City officials have said they would try to recover the cost from the DiMarcos.

Meanwhile, the officials are trying to help the residents displaced from the Sky-Vue find new homes.

Also trying to help residents is Jim Vilt, a lawyer with Nevada Legal Servces, who was at the DiMarcos' side during one court hearing only because he thought residents should have been given longer to move out of the Sky-Vue.

He said he was going to try to recover the security deposits people paid when they moved into the park. He estimated they paid an average of $140 per home.

He also said that homeowners who want to take their mobile homes or recover the value of the homes if they cannot be moved must have their titles, and that may turn out to be a challenge.