By now, you may have read the Dec. 11 story in the Gazette about the county commissioners’ shameful assault on owners of manufactured homes.On Halloween, the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners was asked to vote on a 123-page revision of the regional building code. There was no written summary of what changes in the law were requested. We had just been handed the code and were told to approve it. I stated I had not had time to read it. A colleague admitted that, too. Not one commissioner said he or she had read it.I asked the building official to describe the changes, and he said (on tape) there were just a few minor variations – nothing important. I asked why we didn’t have a version redlining the changes, and he said that was too much trouble. I persisted, and the board finally agreed it would be nice to see what was changed, but only AFTER they approved the new code! So on Trick or Treat Day, you got tricked.I said we should never vote to approve laws we haven’t read, but I was ignored, as usual.The new code was swallowed whole, 4 to 1. “Blind voting” is the same insane practice our state legislators use. I think it should be a crime to vote for a law without signing an affidavit under penalty of perjury that you have read and understand it. What a radical concept!Mr. Persistence called the building official twice in the next month to remind him I still wanted that redlined version. It finally arrived. Before it did, I heard from Howard Hall (683-4772). He objected to new code section 309.4, which said mobile homes built before 1976 cannot be installed or moved within the county, period! That makes them virtually non-saleable, since a new owner can’t move them. Mr. Hall said regional building had tried this scheme three years ago, but he heard of it then, organized opposition and stopped it. (He is prepared to help again.) This time, the law passed secretly!Property owners were never told this change was even on the agenda, so they could object to it. So much for “open government” and a board-professed desire to hear from constituents. But, in helping to conceal the new code’s contents from the public, the board also kept it from itself!I began to investigate. The federal government (with no legal authority) set standards for FUTURE mobile home construction in 1976. The bureaucratic Regional Building study group decided to “assume” every pre-1976 home was 1) built unsafely and 2) never fixed. It was “too much trouble” to get the actual facts, which would show both their assumptions are false. Apparently, the path of least resistance was to anonymously and impersonally run over the “trailer trash” (i.e. low-income workers, retirees, disabled citizens, and other politically impotent “losers”). Disgusting!I asked the building official to forward the evidence his study group had considered on what percent of pre-1976 mobile homes had unsafe original features; what percent had not been upgraded and were still unsafe and what the percentage risk of fire or other dangers to life and limb would be for each improvement made or not made. He REFUSED.He told me to research the data myself on the Internet. He would not forward the information he had (if any) unless ordered to do so by a board majority! He gambled that I may not be able to get two other members to re-open this embarrassing episode. He may have guessed right.Not every pre-1976 mobile home is unsafe, yet all are being tarred with the same broad bureaucratic brush. I called an owner of some of these alleged time bombs. He had hired an electrician to fix the aluminum wiring for about $200. (Aluminum wiring may raise the risk of fire.) He also said small bedroom windows may be enlarged for about the same price, to provide an alternative exit in case of fire. Those were the two main examples of increased risk offered by regional building.If an original risk of fire of say 3 percent was lowered to 2 percent that would be a 33 percent “safety increase.” Is that 1 percent real difference worth rendering homes non-saleable, homes that might be the majority of someone’s assets? How many actual El Paso County deaths and injuries from fire have been tied to these construction defects? How many will this ban prevent? How many millions of other housing code violations with possible risks do we tolerate now? Shouldn’t such issues be debated publicly?A more cynical absurdity is that these “unsafe” homes will still be occupied. The county won’t even TELL current owners and renters of this alleged, unacceptable risk, much less require correction, now or on resale, or even require a resale disclosure. The mobile home can be moved only to another county. We are not protecting people from buying homes later found to be unusable here, or receiving possible injury from it elsewhere. How dumb is that?The assessor’s office is in the process of slashing the market value of these mobile homes, since there is virtually no more “market” for buying them. There are 2,254 victims who own 2,711 pre-1976 mobile homes in the county. The average value WAS over $6,000 each, which equals $16 million in assets the assessor thinks may now be worthless! This reduction will cost tax revenue to the city, county, schools, library and other governments.There is no point in calling the building official. He has been there for 32 years, makes $125,000 a year and received a secret “golden parachute” last December. It guarantees him six months’ salary if he is asked to leave before 2010, even for good cause! If he cared about the safety of the occupants, he would not allow “known” threats to life and limb to continue, without even sending owners a notice of risk. Such postcards would cost under $600. His department has $8 MILLION in cash in the bank. Isn’t building safety his JOB? Or is there another, more hidden agenda in this politically orchestrated purge?If outraged citizens cannot get the board (and also our confiscatory City Council) to admit error, I encourage citizens to hire attorneys to file a class action. The Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights prevents taking someone’s property without just compensation. Rendering it basically worthless, with no proof that it is substantially unsafe, is illegal and immoral.If you want to protect your equity in your pre-1976 mobile home, or your neighbor’s, call me and get involved. Even if not personally affected this time, your property rights may be next. Write/phone/ FAX/e-mail the other commissioners to tell them what you think of this latest governmental outrage. Their phone numbers: Wayne Williams, 520-6411; Sallie Clark, 520-6413; Dennis Hisey, 520-6414; and Jim Bensberg, 520-6415. Commissioners Williams and Bensberg are up for re-election next year.Contact me at (719) 520-6412, by e-mail at DouglasBruce@elpasoco.com, or send a letter to me at 27 E. Vermijo Ave. Colo. Springs, CO 80903. Audiotapes of all BOCC meetings, both simulcast and in archives, are available at www.elpasoco.com. Visit www.DouglasBruce.com for more information.HAPPY NEW YEAR!
