ORANGE – A decision on whether Leisure Woods Estates can increase its monthly property fees by 43% was delayed for a second time Wednesday night as the Mobile Rent Control Board requested the company’s bills from this year and last year to ensure the proposed budget reflects actual expenses.
Leisure Woods Estates Inc. has asked the board to allow it to charge its tenants a fee of $588 per month, which attorney John Kuzinevich said would allow the 72-acre mobile home park at 519 East River Street to keep pace with inflation and the economic climate.
The board’s last public meeting with Leisure Woods on July 16 – which continued from June – focused heavily on the park’s budget and ended with members asking that the owners return to City Hall in August with full budget spending beginning in 2023. Leisure Woods had previously provided spending for 2021 and 2022, but only a partial report for last year.
The city’s Mobile Rent Control Board charter was adopted at a special city meeting in 1986 and allows the board to regulate rents “to remove hardship or correct injustice to both the owner and renter of such mobile home accommodations.” In addition, the charter states that adjustments – either upward or downward – can be made up to a level that “provides the owners with a reasonable net operating income for such units.”
In an Aug. 8 letter to Mobile Rent Control Board Chair Jane Peirce and members of the panel, Kuzinevich announced that he would seek retroactive payments for Leisure Woods Estates to make up for a delay in the hearing process. The letter included a 2023 profit and loss statement and a breakdown of the company’s expenses.
“There have been significant delays in the hearing process and (Leisure Woods Estates) wants the increase to be retroactive. As long as the board awards LWE substantially what it asked for,” Kuzinevich wrote, the plan would be to “spread the retroactive portion over two years and then not make another increase for two years unless there are significant unexpected spikes in spending such as significantly increased taxes, emergencies or natural disasters.”
“Although the budget uses various categories, it is clear that actual spending provides an extremely solid basis for a budget,” Kuzinevich continued in the letter. “Given these modest increases, the board should not seek to cut spending estimates.”
When discussing expenses at Wednesday’s meeting, Peirce noted a number of alleged discrepancies between Leisure Woods’ reported expenses and the proposed budget. She noted that Leisure Woods’ requested salary budget of $170,000 in 2023 showed a larger increase than in previous years.
“I don’t find adequate support for many of these requests. There are no estimates or invoices. … I can see what was supposedly spent, but I don’t see invoices, so this is a process that requires trust but also verification. I would just like to have the documentation because it’s a public process,” Peirce said. “I’m still concerned about the payroll, which is supposed to be $170,000 this year. The problem is it was never $170,000 or anywhere close.”
Peirce explained the company’s salary demands, which had risen steadily over the past five years from $70,000 to $92,000 to $94,000 and finally $141,000, and asked whether the increase took into account the hiring of a new employee.
Glenn Gidley, principal owner of Leisure Woods Estates, then explained that the raise was tied to his son Adam’s salary as park manager. The company did not have enough money to pay him. Peirce then jokingly told Adam, “You need another job.”
“It’s not like we put $50,000 a year in my pocket and (Adam) didn’t do anything and all of a sudden we created a job for him,” Gidley said. “This has been going on for a long time, he’s being supported and supplementing what (the other park manager) is doing without being compensated for it.”
When the meeting opened for public comment, some residents, such as Al Henderson, expressed concern that the park’s requested higher maintenance costs were not justified in light of alleged deficiencies in maintenance. He pointed to alleged unfinished paving and incomplete tree removal as examples of alleged deficiencies in maintenance.
After Glenn and Adam Gidley left the hearing early, expressing their displeasure at the length of the proceedings, Kuzinevich scheduled the next hearing for Wednesday, September 11.
“We’ve had this request for a long time, and I feel like at this point you’re asking for a tremendous amount of detail, which we’re happy to give, but I’m also concerned about the amount of time this whole process is taking,” Gidley said. “You see us copying hundreds and hundreds of documents.”
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected] or 413-930-4429.
