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Williamstown Board Hears Tenants, Management on Rent Hike

By Tammy Daniels, iBerkshires Staff
11:25PM / Monday, September 20, 2010

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More than 75 Spruces residents packed into the Selectmen's meeting room and spilled into the hallway.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A tenants' committee from the Spruces Mobile Home Park disputed on Monday night many of the expenses listed by Morgan Management, saying park residents weren't being given a true accounting of the park's operations.

The expenses will play an important part in the determination of a rate increase that Morgan, the park's management company, is asking the Mobile Home Rent Control Board to set for the 226-lot park. Monday's hearing was the first of two or more the board plans to hold on the matter.

Morgan Management submitted three boxes and 1,300 pages of detailed expenses to support its request for an increase to $409.21 for all lots, up from $258 and $270 (for larger lots). All the rental prices include a $6 municipal fee. The last increase was $10 seven years ago.

Attorney Robert Kraus asked the board to consider the company's request based on the documented evidence it had provided not pleas from tenants.

"It's almost impossible as humans not to weight the emotions and the grist of what you're hearing compared to me," he said. "Emotion and fervor cannot hold the day. ... It has to be the evidence."

More than 75 residents of the park filled the Selectmen's meeting room and spilled into the hallway to hear Morgan's presentation and express their opinions. Many of them arrived by school bus, a fact that stunned board Chairman Jack Noguiera. "I was joking when I drove in that they were bringing them in by the busload."

Tenants Association President Cynthia Clermont-Rebello said her committee reviewed Morgan's receipts and found "hundreds of discrepancies."

Tenant association President Cynthia Clermont-Rebello said Morgan Management hadn't responded to the group's request for documents.

Resident Bonnie Andrews read off a list of discrepancies tenants said indicated that expenses from other Morgan parks and the apartment house on the property were being commingled with expenses for the Spruces.

"We should not be paying for work done in the apartment house," said Andrews, who added there were also bills for questionable expenses such as staff lunches and coffee.

Nogueira said he wasn't interested in coffee and plastic spoons but rather how the company was divvying up larger expenses such as equipment and supplies purchased for use at multiple parks. "I'm more concerned with the heavy stuff and the manpower and how you divide the cost."

Kraus said the company would get the answers for the next meeting.

Many of the questions raised regarding apportionment, legal fees and the use of the company's Shell card were similar to those expressed in North Adams earlier this month. The rent control board there cut Morgan's rate hike request by nearly two-thirds for the Wheel Estates Mobile Home Park.

The board also questioned Morgan's capital improvement in replacing the water system for 152 lots in the "old" section of the park as ordered by the town. Morgan is asking for a 15-year amortization of the $428,000 worth of work done in 2008.

"We've already paid this. All we're asking to be recompensed," said Kraus, adding that work was also done on the recreation hall and roads, which brought a wave of laughter from tenants and a stern warning from Nogueira.

A number of residents said the work to restore roads and lawns was done poorly and asked the board to tour the park, an invitation also extended by Morgan. Nogueira said he planned on walking and driving through the park and invited the rest of the board to accompany him. "If there is improvement to this park I'll be very pleased and so will my board."

There was concern, however, over the fixed incomes on which most of the tenants live. "We understand that Morgan Management is a business but we are all up behind the 8-ball," said Andrews.

"We're a business ... the fact of the matter is we're not a subsidizing agent," said Kraus. He conceded some residents would suffer hardship with a raise of rates. "Unfortunately, that's not factored into your bylaws."

Nogueira assured both that "we're going to be fair to both sides."

The next meeting will be held Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. in the recreation hall at the Spruces Mobile Home Park at the request of the tenants.

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