Note : This is a guest post by Barron Park resident Winter Dellenbach, who came to a BPA Board meeting on September 14th and presented her views to the Board about the possible redevelopment of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. The views expressed are her own and do not indicate that a position on this issue has been taken by the BPA Board or by the BPA itself. When (or if) the developer contacts the BPA Board or comes to a BPA Board meeting to discuss the proposal, we will publish a note with information they provide us.
WHAT IS GOING ON WITH BUENA VISTA MOBILE HOME PARK?
By Winter Dellenbach, La Para Ave.
Buena Vista Mobile Home Park (BV) may be sold and redeveloped, with the many residents forced out of their homes. Here is what is known about the proposal and the effect it would have on the residents.
How Most Long Term Mobile Home Parks Work
A resident usually owns their mobile home; sometimes it is rented. In either case, rent is paid monthly for the space the home occupies. In principle, when a resident moves, they take their mobile home with them to relocate in another park, but there are 2 problems with this. One is that their mobile home may no longer be mobile. It may have been in one place so long that it just isn’t road worthy. Second, if a mobile home is road worthy, there will almost certainly be no empty spaces available in other mobile home parks. Since mobile home parks are among the most affordable housing anywhere, vacancies are at a premium and almost impossible to come by. The BV property is currently home to 104 mobile homes, 12 studio apartments or cabins and a single-family residence. So, if BV closes, there will be a couple hundred people that will lose their housing with very limited options.
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Quakeville 2012 event is this weekend at Cubberley starting on Saturday September 22.
Quakeville is an annual event that provides for the opportunity to involve all community members in Palo Alto, Stanford University and guests to become aware of what is involved in preparing for evacuation and finding alternative shelter. In the past, shelters were set up in parks as tent cities, however, this year, we are partnering with Red Cross to open an indoor shelter. Other activities –
- Palo Alto Animal Shelter will also be participating to exercise their part, and asks sleepover participants to bring a stuffed animal of any size to shelter at our simulated disaster shelter.
- The Emergency Services Volunteers will be also exercising, performing and conducting injury and damage assessments, search and rescue, medical triage and simulated emergency communications.
- Our newly formed Emergency Medical Unit will be conducting simulated medical treatment.
- Informational booths will further Emergency Preparedness education.
- Red Cross is featuring their Mobile Kitchen and their Emergency Response Vehicle.
Sponsored by the City of Palo Alto Office of Emergency Services.
This note is a call for a few more volunteers. We need some general help with greeting and check-in with shifts starting at 10:30 AM until 4:30PM.
We also would like to encourage you to come and be make-up as a victim. We have some wonderful artists from Theatreworks to help with this effort!
This will be lots of fun. The main part of the event is from 2-5PM with comments from dignitaries at 5:30 PM and a free Red Cross dinner for volunteers at 6PM.
Details including links to the flyer and how to sign up on Eventbrite are on www.paneighborhoods.org/ep.
If you do not want to volunteer, just come and join us -watch drills, first aid, search and rescue, learn about emergency preparedness for yourself and your family, and see our new EMU (Emergency Medical Unit) in action. .
See you there!
Neighbors – We have updated our web presence with a new website. Come visit us and check us out.
Our home page has news items of current interest to Barron Park residents, posted from time to time by Barron Park Board members.
We also have …..
- a calender with upcoming events
- a link to our popular BPA- email list signup page
- a new online membership form
- a few pages about us: About the BPA, the BPA Board members, current Committees and activities, BPA history
If you register on the site, you can choose to receive email updates whenever something new is posted; and you can submit comments to the articles.
We also have a “Contact Us” form. Send us a note – we’d like to hear what you think.
Art Liberman and Nancy Hamilton, Co- Webmasters