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Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman is at it again. Just two weeks after the City Council approved his
ordinance calling for City Water, Light & Power bills to be rounded up
to help the homeless, Cahnman introduced a measure last week to help
another Springfield sector — residents of mobile-home parks. Cahnman’s new ordinance, approved by the
council, requires storm shelters to be built in newly constructed mobile
home parks in the city and in existing parks when at least 50 new plots are
constructed. In the past Mayor Tim Davlin has questioned the
effectiveness of Cahnman’s ordinances, and this one is no different.
Ernie Slottag, city communications director, says the mayor doesn’t
think the ordinance will have much effect, given the makeup of the city and
its available land. “It is unlikely any new mobile-home parks of 50
units or more would be built or there is any space to add that many units
to existing parks,” Slottag says. Carol Farley, manager of Ridge Valley Mobile Home
Park for the past 11 years, refers to the ordinance as “totally
ridiculous” and says most of Springfield’s mobile-home parks
will never have to comply with the ordinance. “We have no land to expand on,” Farley
says. “That’s the case for a lot of parks in
Springfield.”
Farley, who has lived in Ridge Valley for 35 years,
says Ridge Valley does comply with a state rule that requires mobile homes
to be tied down and that the park has so far only experienced occasional
tree damage. She and other residents of mobile-home parks have weathered
many storms, Farley says, and many might not even use a storm shelter if
one were available. Cahnman, who was serving on the Sangamon County Board
when tornadoes swept through the Springfield area in March 2006, says it
was then that he became interested in passing a storm-shelter ordinance. In
the future, Cahnman says, he plans to seek out Federal Emergency Management
Agency funds to help build storm shelters throughout the city. “This is the beginning of my efforts to help
mobile-home-park residents,” he says.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2007.
