Trailer park residents fight eviction and win

WOODBINE, N.J.--When Carol Lynn trailer park resident Al Ripa received a letter in the mail kicking him off his land, it didn't surprise him. Ripa had never received as much as a friendly word or even a notice in the mail from his landlord, Anthony Saduk, in more than 16 years of living at Carol Lynn.

But to other residents of the southern New Jersey trailer park, the letter was completely unexpected. One older woman suffered a heart attack upon reading it.

Technically, the letters weren't eviction notices, but they might as well have been. Carol Lynn Resorts had been advertised as the only year-round trailer park in the area--which by the letter of the law was false advertising.

For whatever reason, Carol Lynn exists in a legal limbo. On paper, it's a seasonal resort, but with the strange requirement that during three months of the year, residents have to be off their sites for a one-week period during each one.

In reality, Carol Lynn is home to about 300 permanent households, consisting mainly of disabled senior citizens and low-income workers.

The letters sent out to residents in July informed them that New Jersey state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) now designated the wiring in certain trailers as a fire safety issue if inhabited permanently. Saduk, also a member of the Woodbine City Council, wrote that he intended to enforce these designations--and that as of November 1, 2009, the water would be shut off and the front gate would be locked.

Carol Lynn residents--most without the money to get up and go, and living in trailers that weren't built to be moved easily--were surprised to learn that they had been living at a seasonal resort with restrictions on year-round occupancy that had never been enforced before. One Tennessee woman had sold her home and moved to Carol Lynn just before summer, believing it was a year-round site. Residents observed that Carol Lynn seemed to be the only site in the state where the regulations were being actually enforced.

Residents think the real motive for Saduk's move is financial--that he hoped to push residents of Carol Lynn off of their sites while real estate values were going up. They said heavy construction equipment loomed ominously around the park, ready for "renovations."

Al Ripa, a retired U.S. Marine, wasn't about to roll over and take it. Though he had the money to move and had been planning to head to Florida anyway, Ripa couldn't stomach the idea of walking away. He was concerned for his friends who couldn't afford to move, financially and physically. "What if I threw my dogs out on the street?" he said. "They'd arrest me for animal abuse. That's exactly what he's doing to these senior citizens."

Besides, he said, the evictions were one more example of trends he had witnessed in recent years:

All the rich people in this country forget they wouldn't have all that money if not for working people. We should fire 'em all from their positions and replace them with workers. They never have the money for what you want...but when they need to put a building up, or raise their pay, there's money. I'm not anti-American, but I'm scared of this government. You never know if one day they're gonna just come in here and throw you on the street.

ON THE day the notices came out, Ripa began going door to door with a plan to crash the next Woodbine City Council meeting. Most residents agreed right away, and began going door to door themselves. Within two days, much of the trailer park had gone from despair and outrage to determined anger.

Ripa's trailer became the movement's headquarters, a hive of visitors coming and going with ideas about what to do, questions and doubts. Ripa said that a handful of residents half-jokingly named him "the mayor."

When the City Council meeting came on July 17, more than 50 angry Carol Lynn residents packed the usually empty chamber. As if trying to provoke a response, landlord and council member Saduk opened the public comment session by saying that he couldn't speak on any discussion related to the trailer park. This was followed by an immediate outburst from the gallery.

At the meeting, one resident after resident took their turn on the floor, challenging Saduk for his cruelty and greed, while the council members fidgeted over the relatively light security. Cameras flashed and journalists from local papers jotted down quotes. The mayor of Woodbine, William Pikolycky, made the sad mistake of going to bat for Saduk, who refused to speak had excused himself from the conversation on cheap legalistic grounds.

In the weeks that followed, Ripa had phone conversations several state officials, including the head of the DCA, Joseph Doria. Ripa said he warned the officials, "Don't you know that this is on YouTube?"--and that election season was coming.

Even as Ripa was talking to these officials, New Jersey was rocked by a state corruption scandal that led to 44 mayors, lawmakers and others being arrested for taking bribes, laundering money and even selling a black-market kidney in one case. Gov. Jon Corzine asked Doria to resign, and he complied.

The next gathering for the Carol Lynn residents was at the office of New Jersey state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat who had pledged to help out the situation. About 80 people gathered to see what this man who claimed to be on their side would say. Some were wearing uniforms from low-paying jobs--many leaned on canes and walkers, or sat in wheelchairs.

Van Drew said that with Doria's resignation, the DCA would be more pliant to popular demands. He also said that it was really up to the municipalities to define regulations for seasonal sites. The Woodbine mayor also attended, and he said the regulations would revert to the old rules, which effectively made Carol Lynn a year-round trailer park once again.

Residents asked a few questions to clarify the legalese, wondering if at the bottom of the doublespeak, they were being told that they stay in their homes. The answer was yes, and relief spread through the group.

One Carol Lynn resident said that the change in regulations was good, but the fight wasn't over yet. "Saduk is vindictive," he said, "he's retaliatory...he wants his money." He then went from person to person spreading the idea of a tenants' union.

IN MID-August, residents voted to create a chapter of the New Jersey Tenant's Organization in order to take on other grievances that had been building over time. Not the least of these complaints is a $700 increase in maintenance fees in the course of one year (with maintenance often not done), which some residents believe is also part of Saduk's plan to clear people out.

A few residents have also faced harassment, such as one who was told that his shed was two feet in height over regulation--and then after working on it was told that it was still two inches too tall, and that it had to reduced in two days, or he would be evicted.

But all in all, the people of the trailer park stood their ground. The threatening construction machines disappeared. Those who seemed at first to be powerless flipped the situation around, resisting a landlord politician and the New Jersey state government.

Ripa said he wants the world to know what the residents' victory means: "I've been saying for years that we have to stand up, we have to take it back, and it's not going to take one or two people. If it was one or two people they'd laugh at you, ignore you. But this is an example of lots of people getting together and making it happen.