The Central City village board voted at Tuesday’s meeting to remove the ordinance requirement to have mobile homes placed on block and mortar. There were two dissenting votes, from Tom Cagle and RoseAnn Pickett. Several Central City residents attended the meeting to voice their issues with the requirement during public comment. Terry Johnston said that the rule was an unnecessary and expensive burden to place on mobile home owners.
“I spent $40,000 on this trailer. I will be billed property tax now versus mobile home tax,” Johnston said. “And the trailer sits on the pier… it’s going to cost me an additional $5,000. For a glorified underpinning, I just don’t agree with that.”
When Pickett questioned the merit of suddenly voting to overturn a rule that had recently been approved, Mayor Neely Reed said the board was holding a vote on the ordinance because of an unusually high number of complaints received from residents.
“In the last month, I have had not one person outside of members of this board come up to me who liked this idea,” said Reed. “I can’t tell you how many have come up and said they don’t like it. That’s why this is here now, and why we’re responding to it, because we respond to the citizens’ concerns.”
Both Cagle and Pickett disputed the rule being unpopular, arguing that while some residents had complained about it, there were others who remained silent and were happy with it.
In defense of the rule, Cagle said that requiring blocks would force owners to take care of their property and improve the appearance of Central City.
“I want the city to start looking good… If you spend a little bit more money on it, you’ve got a greater chance of taking care of it. We’ve got people that bring in these trailers that don’t cost very much and they slap whatever they can under it and charge $600 a month,” Cagle said. “That’s the problem, they don’t care. They want to make a living off our city instead of live in our city and have other people want to come into our city. Would you want to build a $200,000 dollar house in Central City right now? I wouldn’t.”
Trustees Siera Stoffel, James Hill, and D.G. Cushman voted “yes” to remove the requirement, while Jeff Thomas abstained.
In other action, the board approved a donation to the Mike Fontaine golf outing for September 14 and approved closing the alley north of the Broadway Tavern on September 27 and 28 for a class reunion.
