Eviction hearing for mobile home residents continue Oct. 30 Residents demand rent control at protest outside of park BY COLLEEN LUTOLF Staff Writer PHOTOSBYJEFF GRANIT staff Above: Kayle Manzoli, 3, of Brick, reviews the sign she held at a protest outside the mobile home park where her grandmother, Bonnye Spino, lives. Most of the park's residents have received eviction notices after withholding their rents due to what residents say are poor conditions at the park. At right: Maria Misitano, a 20-year resident of the Laurelton Mobile Home Park, protests park conditions outside the park on Route 88 Oct. 11. BRICK - An Oct. 16 court date before state Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Foster hasn't resolved issues with Laurelton Mobile Home Park residents. Bonnye Spino, the park's homeowners association president, is one of over 70 residents who received eviction notices from the park's landlord, Edgewood Properties, the real estate development firm owned by Jack Morris. "The lawyers went in and spoke with the judge," Spino said. "We have to go back on Oct. 30." Some residents are now also represented by three pro bono Legal Aid attorneys, Spino said. "They seem very concerned," Spino said. "They know all the stories." Residents did release to Charles Hanlon, of Hanlon & Niemann, Freehold, Edgewood's attorney in the case, partial rents from the residents, Spino said. Hanlon could not be reached for comment. "We released checks for $250 in good faith," she said. Most mobile home park residents pay about $360 a month. The residents had offered the $250 monthly payment in the past, but Edgewood had refused partial payment of rent. Residents were served with eviction notices last month after a yearlong battle with their landlord over park improvements and contaminated dirt dumped on the site by the park's owner. "He keeps saying he didn't know the condition of the park when he bought it," Spino said. "If your people didn't check it out and you bought a pig in a poke, that's your problem that's not our problem." Spino was scheduled to meet with the homeowners association attorney, Roberta Burcz, Wednesday, she said. Burcz could not be reached for comment. The court date came on the heels of a protest held by residents outside the park on Route 88 Oct. 11. Over 25 residents, including one nonresident - Mary Cotten, the mother of township Councilman Stephen C. Acropolis - stood outside the park holding signs and waving to passing motorists. "I live in a senior village and I'm here supporting the seniors," Cotten said as she held a sign stating, "Cut our trees and clean up our community! "The conditions are terrible here." Standing beside Cotten was resident Bob Shannon, a park resident for decades. Shannon was protesting Oct. 11 "because he's [Morris] trying to drive us out of here and now he wants a security deposit. This is really a message to Morris to treat us like human beings." Shannon and other residents are also demanding rent control for the mobile home park, something the Township Council has been reluctant to do. "We want our rent control," he said. "We want our 5.5 percent [increase] like Barnegat." Barnegat's rent control ordinance for mobile home parks actually allows no more than a 3.5 percent increase, according to Barnegat's ordinance. "I'm really getting fed up with our sewer breaks," said Helen Witherspoon, 77, who has lived in the park for five years. "Sewer water came up to my tub, my toilets overflowed. The second time they didn't clean under my mobile home. The smell coming up into my home, it made me nauseous." Witherspoon said she experienced water breaks three times in the years before Morris bought the park in January 2005. Hours before the protest, Edgewood Properties employees showed up with 11 mums and cleaned up garbage along the park's entrance, Spino said. "With that sense of humor, he should've been Irish," Shannon said.