Mapleton Mobile-izers

“Kathryn was a valuable part of the team for these past two years,” former MHA President Mark Reeder told the Mobile-izer.  “She was in the thick of negotiations with HHS and TCH in the transfer of the property from City ownership to Thistle.  She fought for Mapleton residents at every step.”

Ms. Alexander took over in May, 2003, and immediately had an impact when she saved a $43,000 grant to the MHA from being withdrawn.  Over these last two years, she attended every meeting and negotiation.  At the time of her resignation, Ms. Alexander was redefining the role of Community Coordinator from representing residents during negotiations with HHS and TCH to what the MHA would do in the future.

The MHA has no plans to replace her at this time.

Election of officers.

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Nick Tamm was nominated for President by Paul Keaton, Kabir seconded - Accepted Unanimously.  Paul Keaton was nominated for Vice President by Nick Tamm, Jonathan Machen seconded - Accepted Unanimously.  Jonathan Machen was nominated for Management Chair by Alex Wilson, Paul Keaton seconded - Accepted Unanimously.  There were no nominations for Secretary. The board will appoint a temporary secretary until a person can be found to accept the nomination.

The New President, Nick Tamm, then recognized Jonathan Machen, who presented Mark Reeder with a plaque of appreciation for his 10 years of service to the MHA.

CU/MHA Project Report.

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Kathryn Alexander reported that MHA is negotiating a partnership with the University of Colorado Environmental Design Department to remodel older homes from an environmental perspective. Thistle brought the partnership to MHA and sits on the committee that oversees the project along with MHA and the CU environmental Design head and the head of the Planning Department. This is a long-term project that will experiment with ways to upgrade homes in an environmentally sound manner by covering them and redoing the interiors. This first project will be a strawbale exterior with stone “skirting”. The advantage for residents is that we may be able to offer options for upgrading homes that does not require money to teardown the old or set up the new home. This could mean a substantial savings. Each demonstration project will be different with CU providing the student labor and all parties working to help fund the project and share in the sale of the home at completion.

Nick Tamm asked how long the project would run.  Kathryn answered that the project is scheduled to run for a year.  Each project would employ different designs and materials.

Infrastructure Report:

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Nick Tamm reported that MHA has written a letter, composed by Kathryn Alexander and Mark Reeder, asking both Qwest and Xcel for help in defraying the cost of putting in the dry utilities.  He then asked Bill Windsor of Thistle Community Housing to give the residents an update on infrastructure rehab. Bill explained that the goal was to install the entire new infrastructure in one phase.  Sewer, water, gas, electric and phone with Comcast cable at once.  The project was priced out at $1 million above budget.  Now decisions have to be made on what to do first.

The current thinking is to have infrastructure upgrades done to the entire park not one section of it.   Right now there is enough  money to do water, sewer and roadways and repair some telephone.  Bill then explained that the letter Nick Tamm spoke of earlier addressed the electric and gas upgrades with Xcel and the telephone with Qwest.  The idea is to approach the two companies and ask them to donate the costs of their upgrades.  The costs would be about $700,000.  The argument is that Xcel and Qwest have benefited for 40 years from a private system that they did not have to fund.  Usually Qwest and Xcel would be asked to put in a system and they would do the electrical for themselves. Alex Wilson told residents that he priced out new electrical for his place and it ran between $8,000 and $15,000. 

Bill then explained that if enough money can be found to put in the new transformers, then residents will not have so far to go to put in an up graded electric system. The new cost could be closer to $4,000.

Steve Schroepfer #83 asked what impact the new upgrades would have on homes.  Bill answered that mobile homes would not be off line for more tan a day, as units would be hooked up as soon as utilities were run to them.

To help out with costs residents will be asked to remove their own skirting, to clean out underneath their home and possibly to connect the new service. Residents will not be without service for more than a day and there will be plenty of notice as the project moves through the park.  For those residents who are unable to remove their own skirting, Bill suggested that other residents could be recruited to help them out.

Affordability Report

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Nick then introduced TCH's Barbara Navin for an affordability update.  Barbara reported that TCH hoped to finish up the rent tiers by the end of April with MHA help, and that rent tier letters would go out by the end of the week. Rents that go down will be retroactive from January and rents that go up will be effective July one.

Possible Park Name Change

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Mark Reeder said that several residents have expressed interest in changing the name of the Park. One suggestion has been Mapleton Hollow. This has been a name of the area in the past. He asked residents to suggest other names and/or to express their interest in the name Mapleton Hollow. About 50% of those residents attending would consider thinking about changing the Park's name.  A name change would be voted on at the next quarterly meeting.

President Nick Tamm adjourned the meeting at 6:20 pm.

 

On May 13th, three weeks after accepting the Presidency of the MHA, Nick Tamm resigned. Vice President Paul Keaton stepped in as acting President.  At a Board of Directors meeting, Monday, May 23, Paul let the Board know that he was willing to accept permanently the position as President. The MHA’s Executive Board made it official. The MHA is now looking for a new Vice President. 

On April 25th, the Board appointed Mark Reeder acting Secretary.  The Board is looking for a resident to become secretary, as Mark will be stepping down from that position at the end of the year.

The Management Committee currently has five members and will expand to seven.

Residents are encouraged to help out the MHA by participating on either the Management Committee or the Board.  Residents interested in either position, please contact Board members, listed below.

Infrastructure Renovation Update

Infrastructure upgrades are coming. This report will present the pros and cons of two possible ways to upgrade the Park’s ailing and often times failing infrastructure. 

Since the Mapleton Mobile Home Park Quarterly Meeting, MHA representatives have participated in meetings with Thistle Community Housing, which owns Mapleton Mobile Home Park, Drexell Barrel, the engineering firm drawing the plans for infrastructure upgrades, and Wyatt Construction, the firm responsible for carrying out the upgrades. 

The plans have been gone over to see how the upgrades could be done with the least impact on residents and at the best price.  Originally, the thought was to have the Park done in two phases - wet utilities first and dry utilities later.  For the wet utilities, the streets would be torn up and trenches dug for water and sewer. Later, the dry utilities would be installed by trenching through residents’ yards.  The advantages of this plan are that the entire Park has wet utilities upgrades at once.  This means better water pressure, more reliable sewer, and fire hydrants for safety.  It also takes advantage of the amount of money currently available for infrastructure work.

Residents Nick Tamm, Maria Downing and Paul Keaton pointed out to the MHA’s site committee three disadvantages to the two-step plan:

1) The cost increases by as much as $500,000 because the trenching has to be done twice.

2) Impact on the residents is much greater, since their lives would be disrupted by construction twice.

3) The loss of trees throughout the Park would be greater since trenching through the yards would mean many more trees would have to be removed.

An alternative plan was discussed and the MHA’s site committee, Kurt Bischoff and Mark Reeder then presented this alternative to all the parties involved at a May 18th meeting.

The new plan would have both wet and dry utilities done in Park sections - North/South.

The advantages to this plan are:

1) Saving up to $500,000 in costs.

2) Less disruption of residents’ lives

3) Saving trees and hedges

The disadvantages center around funding that is based on a Park wide benefit in order for the funding to become available.  However, in looking into the infrastructure problems, the Site Committee discovered several reasons why the North South plan worked for all residents.

The fall back position is to do sewer, and water first.  Sewer and water would go through the streets and then gas and electric would go through the yards at a later date. 1) Better than 75% of the maintenance problems in the Park are on the South half.  Sewer line back ups in particular are worse because the south side sewer system is 12 years older than the north’s.  In addition, the north’s sewer lines connect in to the south, adding receive back the costs of that infrastructure through their rates charged to residents.  Residents have been paying for 40 years on a private system and both Qwest and Xcel have benefited from this.  If  residents wish to write their own letters to Xcel and Qwest, they should send them to Kathryn who will forward them to Bill.  By donating their services, the infrastructure costs could be trimmed enough in connection with other cost saving measures to enable the entire infrastructure to be done at once.

We are waiting for the first site approval form the City Planning Department. They are 60 days behind schedule. This could push the start date back to August, instead of the hoped for date of June. The project is projected to take 11 months.

Maria Downing #41 asked whether Qwest and Xcel could front the costs and then collect them over time through fees.  Bill answered that this would be unlikely at this time.

Kabir, #55 asked if the costs for putting in the dry utilities later would be more expensive.  Bill answered yes, around $1.3 million versus $1 million. Bill then explained that the MHA and TCH meet with the engineers and Wyatt Construction to see what can be trimmed from the budget.  So far the MHA has worked well protecting residents.

Paul Keaton #22 reminded everyone that the new infrastructure had bee planned in order to bring in new homes.  Without electrical, new homes could not be brought in. 

Bill agreed, but said that the sewer and water were important because of health and safety issues.  The old sewer system of clay pipe was breaking down and could leak raw sewage into the ground and become hazardous to the residents.   If the electric is not done right away, residents could bring in new to the south half’s problems.  By fixing the south half of the Park’s sewer system first, the Park’s entire system benefits.

Water pressure is bad throughout the Park.  However, the north half can be tied into the south half, very inexpensively near the 26th street bridge.  Water pressure for the entire Park would then be improved when new water lines are installed in the south part.

3) All of us love our trees.  They block road noise from Folsom and provide shade in summer.  Losing these trees would greatly reduce the beauty and park like quality of Mapleton.

4) Reducing the debt load by $500,000 means no extra rent hikes to cover the shortfall in funding.

5) Currently, the south half of the Park has five vacant lots. Moreover, new homes cannot be brought into the Park until all the infrastructure upgrades are completed.  By finishing the south side first, six new homes can be added, and Park income improves by $24,000 a year.

Drexell Barrel and TCH got behind the new plan.  The numbers still have to be run to determine where the Park is divided North South.  The logical division is at Goose Creek, but costs and funds have to be worked out to determine whether that is possible.

 Meanwhile, the MHA and Thistle are pursuing other options.  The biggest obstacle to completing the entire Park’s wet and dry utilities at once is the lack of funding.  We are nearly $1 million short. TCH and the MHA are approaching Xcel and Qwest, asking them to donate the electrical, gas and phone upgrades for free.  They would get their costs back through rates charged to residents.  Moreover, they have benefited for 50 years from a private system they did not install.  If they agree to this request, the Park saves close to $750,000 in costs.  The result is that it could be possible to do the entire Park at once.

Executive Board

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Paul Keaton

303-939-8140

Silvia Gentile  Trea.

303 447-2246

Jonathan Machen

Mgmt Chair

303-415-0761

Mark Reeder Sec.

303-444-4140

Business Committee

Paul Keaton

Ben Jensen

 

Management

Committee

Jonathan Machen

        303-415-0761

Alex Wilson

        303-447-8508

Gene Langlois

        303-444-4988

Maria Downing 

        303-931-7198

Mamud Kabir

        303-443-8029

 

Finance Committee

Silvia Gentile

 

Site Committee

Kurt Bischoff

Mark Reeder

 

Attorneys

Dennis R .Frohlich

Susan Perkins

 

Business

Consultant

Tim Shuminsky

 

 

 

 

 

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