See a timeline of Yosemite National Park’s planned eviction of homeowners near park
Sunday is the last day a group of homeowners near Yosemite National Park will be allowed to live in their longtime homes.
The mobile home owners in the El Portal Trailer Park are expected to remove or surrender their homes without compensation.
Yosemite officials are concerned about the safety of power lines there that Yosemite owns and have other plans for the site. It’s located outside the national park in the small, rural community of El Portal, about a 5-minute drive from Yosemite’s west entrance along Highway 140.
The affected residents own their homes but lease the land beneath them, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Those leases will be terminated at 11:59 p.m. March 13. El Portal residents have to work for Yosemite or its park partners to live in the community.
Here’s a timeline of what’s happened leading up to this point, based on numerous interviews and documents gathered during an investigation by The Fresno Bee.
- Jan. 1, 2000: A previous plan to close the El Portal Trailer Park on this date to use the site for other things is vacated in the 1990s due to a lack of funding. There is no new closure date. Residents are told the closure of the trailer park will “continue to be implemented through attrition.”
- 2009: Yosemite gets authorization for a project to increase employee housing in the trailer park. The plans Yosemite announced called for the restoration of underground water, sewer and electrical services to 58 spaces in the El Portal Trailer Court, including for privately-owned mobile homes. Only about 25 of the spaces were occupied then. The project isn’t funded.
- 2014: A record of decision was issued for the Merced Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan, which becomes Yosemite National Park’s guiding document for future projects. The 200-page plan includes a number of contradictions, leaving many unsure what to expect. In some places, it notes 40 campsites, some with RV hook-ups, will be incorporated into a redesign of the Abbieville/Trailer Village Area, adjacent to a new remote parking area for 300 vehicles. It says 36 private residences there will someday be removed or relocated, and talks about adding over 150 more employee housing units elsewhere in El Portal “to replace housing removed from Yosemite Valley.”
- October 2021: Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon sends letters to residents of the trailer park, also known as the trailer court or trailer village, that say the overheard electrical system was found to be in “very poor condition” and cautioning that “one potential outcome” might be PG&E determining the power lines that Yosemite owns should be de-energized. “If requisite repairs are not feasible, particularly in the context of the NPS’ long-term plan for the site,” then NPS will “accelerate” their relocation. The letter also states the site will be converted to a public and administrative-use campground for recreational vehicles, with campground construction slated to begin in 2024. This is the first time residents learn of that 2024 date.
- Dec. 13, 2021: Muldoon writes letters dated Dec. 13 to trailer park residents, notifying them that lease agreements for their mobile home pads will be terminated in 90 days. Unauthorized tenants, including renters, are given just 60 days, what’s later changed to 90. Also on this day, Yosemite officials finally do an interview with The Bee that was promised months prior to talk about Yosemite construction projects. During the interview, Kathleen Morse, Yosemite’s division chief of strategic planning and project management, said the Great American Outdoors Act helped fund a new “major power line that connects El Portal, this whole area of the canyon, to Yosemite Valley. It provides power to Yosemite Valley. We replaced that power line with PG&E ... so it’s (the outdoors act) funded that work, which is pretty much done.” During the hour-plus call, there’s no mention of plans to evict El Portal residents due to unsafe power lines there.
- December 2021: El Portal Trailer Court residents receive letters in the mail from Muldoon dated Dec. 13, informing them that their lease agreements will be terminated due to unsafe power lines, and that they have to remove or surrender the mobile homes they own without compensation by March 13. Some learn of this just days before Christmas.
- Dec. 22, 2021: After one soon-to-be displaced resident informs The Bee of the coming evictions, Yosemite spokesperson Gediman does an interview with The Bee about the issue. In addition to the electrical concerns, Yosemite construction projects in 2022 and beyond are mentioned many times as a reason for the closure of the trailer park. He said the site could be used as a staging area for “major multi-million dollar projects.” “With our budgets coming up and a need for staging area and temporary camping for the construction workers, this is the use that we need in order to operate the park,” he said.
- January 2022: The Bee publishes a series of stories about the mobile home park: “Yosemite is forcing homeowners to leave without compensation. Here’s why” (Jan. 1), “Homeowners being forced out by Yosemite are seeking help. ‘We don’t know what to do’” (Jan. 4), and “‘Trailer trash treatment.’ Homeowners feel ignored by Yosemite after being told to leave” (Jan. 15). The stories are read by over 112,000 people online. A change.org petition, “Stop the inhumane eviction of our community members at the El Portal Trailer Court,” is created by a former El Portal resident to help the residents. It has over 2,100 signatures.
- Feb. 1, 2022: A GoFundMe donation account is created by longtime El Portal Trailer Park resident Terri Nishimura to fund legal services to help the affected residents. It’s raised over $1,100 of a $100,000 goal.
- Feb. 3, 2022: Luke Harbin and his mother – among the longtime Yosemite workers and affected homeowners – get an in-person meeting with Muldoon. Harbin said he tried to get a meeting earlier but was previously told Muldoon wouldn’t meet with him. They asked for an extension to remove belongings during the meeting, which Harbin said ended early after they made his mom cry.
- Feb. 8, 2022: The planned closure of the trailer park is addressed during a phone conference meeting of the El Portal Planning Advisory Committee, part of the Mariposa County Planning Department. Residents shared concerns and said they want the Park Service to hold a group meeting with all of them. One committee member said NPS infrastructure in the area will continue to be powered and called the reported electrical issue a “red herring” by the Park Service.
- March 4, 2022: After Yosemite says it will not hold an in-person public meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead promising individual meetings upon request, Harbin decided to host a public meeting himself. The 32-year-old rented out the community hall in Old El Portal, just down the road from the trailer park. He said about 30 to 40 community members attended although Yosemite didn’t send a representative.
- March 8, 2022: The coming trailer park closure is discussed during another phone meeting of the El Portal Planning Advisory Committee. Four trailer park residents who attended told the committee they left many messages for Muldoon, asking for a meeting and an extension to remove their belongings, but hadn’t heard from her. One NPS employee at the meeting said he’d relay the information to the superintendent’s office.
- March 9, 2022: Harbin’s mom is finally told in a phone call with someone at the superintendent’s office that she will be granted a 30-day extension to remove her belongings – but not to live there. NPS spokespeople previously said three of the 12 authorized trailer park residents had been granted one of these 30-day extensions, and that nine had been offered employee housing within Yosemite. Harbin said the employee dorm his mom was able to rent has a shared bathroom and kitchen and is a fraction the size of the home she owns. Unlike in El Portal, children and spouses of most employees also aren’t allowed to reside in employee housing in Yosemite Valley.
- March 10, 2022: The Bee published another story about this issue, “Yosemite will soon oust homeowners near the national park. Residents call it ‘heartless,’” that included interviews with attorneys and more information from Yosemite. NPS spokespeople are now saying, “Currently, there is no alternative use planned for the trailer court area in 2022,” and described why Yosemite is not providing any financial compensation to the affected residents. The Bee story was read by over 66,000 people online as of early Friday evening.
- March 13, 2022: At 11:59 p.m. Sunday, trailer park residents will no longer be allowed to live in their longtime homes. Those with 30-day extensions will be allowed to remove personal property once they “have vacated their sites and the pads have been de-energized.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 6:07 PM with the headline "See a timeline of Yosemite National Park’s planned eviction of homeowners near park."
Carmen Kohlruss
The Fresno Bee