SANTA PAULA : Residents of Mobile Homes Protest Tax

More than 700 mobile-home residents in Santa Paula received a surprise from the Ventura County tax collector this week: a bill for $25 to help fund the Blanchard Community Library.

On Tuesday, hundreds of residents deluged the tax collector’s office with telephone calls, complaining that they are not obligated to pay the tax because they do not own the land on which their trailers sit.

“When I heard the first phone call, I knew exactly what had happened,” said Cynthia Simmons, public service manager in tax collector Harold S. Pittman’s office. “I was here nine years ago when it happened then.”

In November, voters approved a measure that assessed landowners inside the Blanchard Community Library District a $25 annual tax to help pay increasing operating costs.

Simmons said that a list of the district’s tax rolls was forwarded to Blanchard Library Director Daniel Robles and that it inadvertently included mobile-home park residents.

In 1985, when the library district was established, those same residents received a $5 bill sent to them by mistake, she said.

“We didn’t know anything about it until the tax bills came out on Monday,” Robles said. “But if they don’t own the land, they’re not liable for the tax.”

New letters advising mobile-home park residents not to pay the tax will be mailed this week, Simmons said.

Refunds will be made to those who already paid.