Monday, May 24, 2004 | 12:53 p.m.
More than three weeks after Las Vegas city officials forced the closure and evacuation of Sky-Vue Mobile Home Park, it is still being occupied, in violation of the city's April 26 declaration that it was too dangerous to live in, authorities said this morning.
Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Director Orlando Sanchez and Jim Shadrick, an inspector for the city, said this morning that a man who is living at the park as the owners' "security chief" should not be there. And Shadrick said the city had recently kicked out of the park a former maintenance worker who had "gerry-rigged electricity to a mobile home with California registration" that had expired about three years ago.
As for the "security chief," Allen Talbott, the fact that he was still living at 15 W. Owens Ave. is partly the city's fault. Shadrick said the city had mistakenly delivered a notice, dated May 20 that states: "No one to occupy, reside or otherwise reside or inhabit this park except for 1. Sandi DiMarco 2. Dave DiMarco 3. Allen Talbott."
The notice was taped to the door of the park's office Sunday.
Sanchez and Shadrick said the notice was an error caused by Talbott and possibly the DiMarcos, the couple who own and operate the park, misrepresenting what Sanchez had said. Sanchez said this morning that he had clarified the matter with city inspectors.
"No one is supposed to be living there because it has been declared an imminent hazard," Sanchez said. "These are the same kinds of games the DiMarcos have been playing with us all along."
Sanchez said city authorities would be returning to the park today to tell Talbott he can't live there.
Talbott said that he needed to stay at the park to to keep it secure. The city officials said they agree that the DiMarcos need to secure the premises, but it needs to be done without having anyone sleeping at the park.
Near the back of the mobile home park Sunday, an old yellow trailer sat among the trees, missing a chunk of its outer aluminum skin.
Toward the middle of the park another trailer's grimy yellow insulation was exposed, and other mobile homes sit without some of the strips of thin metal skirts that extend to the ground on many of their neighbors.
"People are taking the aluminum to sell it for recycling," Talbott said.
Talbott said Sunday he was the only one still staying at the park, which was closed by the City of Las Vegas April 30 after health and safety inspectors found leaking sewer pipes, unsanitary water, faulty wiring and a lack of fire hydrants.
Talbott said there's not much he can do about the aluminum thieves who come through holes in the chain-link fence that surrounds the trailer park.
He had two helpers staying at the park with him until Friday, when city officials told him that wasn't allowed. City marshals had helped patrol the closed park until about two weeks ago. A private security company hired by the city to help at Sky-Vue was there until Friday, a city official said.
The city is billing the park's owners for those and some other Sky-Vue expenses incurred by taxpayers.
Talbott said he had been spending the last few days as the lone lookout, turning away would-be intruders when he catches them and removing some working equipment from trailers, such as swamp coolers, to move them to other mobile home parks also owned by Sandi and Steve DiMarco.
Talbott leaves the front gate unlocked for the few former park residents who come and go each day to pick up more of their belongings.
Talbott estimated that about one-third of the 100 mobile homes are still full of former residents' possessions.
Talbott said he feels like he is living in a ghost town. The rows of trailers sit silent and empty. Even the many feral cats and their litters of kittens have been rounded up and taken away.
In the roughly three weeks since the park was ordered closed, only two trailers have been moved out.
Talbott said 11 or 12 of the trailers are privately owned, and city officials have told him those remaining aren't in good enough shape to be moved.
Sanchez said the owners of six trailers asked that their trailers be moved, and two were, one dropped that request, and the other three would not have survived the move.
Sanchez emphasized that all the Sky-Vue residents who asked for help relocating have received it.
One of those trailers that apparently wouldn't have survived a move belongs to Don Gillispie, a 68-year-old retired truck driver, who has since moved into another mobile home park.
The problem with Gillispie's trailer at Sky-Vue is that half of it was added on to the original trailer.
"It would all go to pieces," Gillispie said about trying to move his home for most of the past 18 months.
Gillispie is among a group of former residents who say the city should have given the Dimarcos more time to fix the problems at Sky-Vue before closing it down.
But not all former residents share that view.
Queen Jackson, 52, who was relocated from her home in Sky-Vue to an apartment at the Moulin Rouge, said the city was right.
"The DiMarcos had so many years to fix everything," she said. "Some of the trailers were OK, but most were not OK."
Jackson said when she moved into Sky-Vue, her trailer had broken windows and hot water constantly ran from a faucet.
Jackson said the city did a good job finding a place for the displaced residents to stay, but now she plans to return to her native Denver.
The Dimarcos did not return telephone messages Sunday.
Sanchez said the Sky-Vue owners haven't requested any building permits, which indicates to him they are not working to fix the problems there.
"I hear they're trying to sell it," Sanchez said.
Talbott said he, too, is unsure about the future of the trailer park.
"I just wish I knew one way or another so I would know what to tell people," Talbott said.
archive
