Bidding adios to El Nido

Deirdre Newman

On Thursday, a small flag ceremony took place on the grounds of El

Nido trailer park.

The impromptu ceremony that was designed to commemorate the

closing of the park Sunday also represented the mending of bitter

feelings between some of the park’s residents and owner Joe Brown Sr.

Brown had been maligned month after month by a group of residents

of the park because they felt the relocation package he was offering

them was not generous enough. The residents’ frustration came to a

head when the City Council decided not to pass a law tightening up

the rules for owners who want to close mobile home parks.

But Thursday, the bitterness of the past was replaced with sadness

and nostalgia that El Nido and its neighboring park, Snug Harbor,

were closing. And the vitriol directed toward Brown has mostly been

replaced by kind words for his generous actions over the past few

months.

“Him and I are like old buddies,” said Dick Matherly, who like

many other residents just met Brown in person for the first time

recently. This stands in stark contrast to comments Matherly made at

City Council meetings throughout the past year, complaining of

deplorable conditions at the park and faulting Brown for a low-ball

relocation offer.

Other residents have also noticed a change in Brown. Irene

Shannon, a feisty El Nido resident, who led the charge for the mobile

home ordinance, said she thinks Brown started acting nicer toward the

residents who complained after the council made some changes to

Brown’s location report.

“In the last few weeks, he is taking personal charge and dealing

with residents and being extra nice and going beyond what he has to

do for the elderly and disabled,” Shannon said.

Brown says he always intended to be generous and compassionate

toward the residents, but he encountered such extreme emotion against

him when he first announced he was closing the park that he wanted to

wait until things cooled off.

“The truth is we were always ready to do this,” Brown said. “We

just never had an opportunity with everyone screaming at [us]. The

emotions were really high. We got to be the ones who proved what we

were going to do instead of just talking about it.”

Brown said he felt emotions had calmed down after an independent

review of his relocation report found it was adequate. Once the

fairness of the report had been validated, he was ready to negotiate

with the residents, he said. Brown’s basic relocation offer was

$3,000 for single-wide trailers and $6,300 for double-wide mobile

homes. But Brown went above and beyond that, including paying for

storage and moving costs for some residents.

For Matherly, who lived at El Nido for 27 years, Brown made many

generous gestures, including giving him a few months free rent,

putting in a new floor and adding a room onto his relocated mobile

home at Anchor Trailer Park to help store Matherly’s prolific

collection of lighthouses.

“I think everyone’s pretty happy -- I am,” Matherly said Friday

afternoon, surveying his new environment at Anchor. “I’m having fun

fixing this place up.”

Shannon, who will be one of the last El Nido residents to move out

on Sunday, remains frustrated that the city still doesn’t have more

authority over the conversion and closure of mobile home parks. All

mobile home park owners have to abide by is state law, which requires

cities to review relocation reports and decide if they provide the

reasonable costs of relocation.

What’s missing, Shannon said, is any requirement that park owners

compensate mobile home owners for the value of their homes, which

many have invested time and money in for decades. Shannon lived at El

Nido for 15 years and said her home is worth about $30,000. Friday

morning, wearing a Libertarian T-shirt -- a party she helped get on

the ballot for the very first time -- she had some fighting words for

others who might find themselves in the same situation.

“I encourage other mobile home park residents to keep at City Hall

to change [the existing rules] before it happens to them,” said

Shannon, who is moving into an assisted-living facility. “Because it

will happen the next time someone wants to close a park.”

Brown is closing the parks to build a medical office building on

his property. The environmental report for the project is finished

and will be available for public review this week, he said.

At the flag ceremony Thursday, Brown videotaped Matherly and

former El Nido resident Dorothy Harmer, who also moved to Anchor,

lowering the flag for the last time.

“This is very emotional for my entire family,” Brown said. “Nobody

wanted to do this [close the parks].”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.