National Park Service acknowledges changing its story over evictions near Yosemite
The National Park Service shared some new details about its recent closure of a mobile home park near Yosemite National Park.
Among the new information: More about how electrical service was handled in the El Portal Trailer Park, and why previous statements made by Yosemite about its plans for the site differ from what spokespeople are saying now.
One longtime homeowner forced out of her El Portal home, Toni Covington, was found dead in her new dorm in Yosemite Valley on Thursday. Autopsy results and a cause of death weren’t available on Monday.
Power was shut off to her mobile home a couple days earlier. March 13 was the last day residents were allowed to live in the El Portal Trailer Park, located just outside Yosemite along Highway 140 and the Merced River. Many there own their homes but lease the land beneath them, and those leases were terminated.
About a dozen residents in the mobile home park received 30-day extensions, into April, to move their belongings, but not to live there. In December, they were initially given just 90 days. They will have to remove or surrender the homes they own without compensation. No financial assistance was provided by Yosemite or other agency.
There is a GoFundMe donation account and change.org petition to help them.
What are Yosemite’s plans in El Portal?
Denise Adamic, a regional spokesperson for the National Park Service, reiterated that “the immediate concern and driver of the timeline for the closure of the area to residential use was the risk of fire and the threat to human life.”
In addition to the electrical concerns, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman in December also told The Fresno Bee the site would be needed in 2022 and beyond as a staging area for major Yosemite projects, including equipment and camping for construction workers.
Other NPS spokespeople recently said, “Currently, there is no alternative use planned for the trailer court area in 2022.”
Adamic explained why information now differs from what was first shared.
About the construction staging statements, Adamic said last week, “We misspoke. While this possibility had been a topic of discussion, this was not a factor in any decision making and there are no plans for use of the trailer court in 2022.”
There are still future plans to turn the site into a campground.
Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon told trailer park residents in her October letter that the site will be converted to a public and administrative-use campground for recreational vehicles, with campground construction slated to begin in 2024.
NPS spokespeople added earlier this month that Yosemite “is in the process of pursuing funding” for that campground project.
“Any use associated with that purpose that requires electrical service would not begin until the electrical infrastructure has been repaired or replaced to mitigate the present safety concerns,” Adamic said.
Earlier this month, NPS spokespeople also made a more general statement about its future use: “In the future, and once the electrical system is rebuilt, the park may use the site to support construction of a project they are in the process of pursuing funding for, which wouldn’t begin until at least 2024.”
Yosemite and PG&E service in mobile home park
Adamic responded to additional questions from The Bee last week.
“The National Park Service owns and operates the system that distributes power to the trailer court site. PG&E is the power provider and has performed contracted work,” Adamic said. “The National Park Service bills trailer court tenants for electrical service to the trailer pads. Those funds are used to cover the cost of generation that NPS pays to PG&E. Utility income collected by the NPS from direct users does not cover maintenance, repair, and investment costs associated with the NPS-owned infrastructure.
“Park staff work hard to maintain infrastructure in safe, operable condition with the financial resources available. But the park currently has a large maintenance backlog of critical infrastructure.”
Yosemite has been receiving an influx of funds from the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act to update infrastructure. Yosemite used some of that money to install a major new power line between El Portal and Yosemite Valley with PG&E that reportedly didn’t include work in the El Portal Trailer Park.
Adamic said “a third-party contractor, and PG&E” performed a condition assessment at the trailer park in the fall.
Muldoon worded that differently in an October letter to residents, stating Yosemite “has contracted PG&E to fully assess the condition” – adding that “one potential outcome” might be PG&E determining the power lines should be de-energized. This followed an assessment from Laymon Electric in September.
A subsequent letter from Muldoon in December told residents their lease agreements would be terminated in 90 days.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company spokesperson Denny Boyles told The Bee then that PG&E looked at power lines there for Yosemite as a courtesy, not as a contractor, adding, “there would never be a time where we would have any kind of authority to recommend a tenant be evicted for any reason.”
When power was being shut off last week, Boyles wasn’t aware of PG&E doing work in the trailer park on Tuesday and said “at this point,” anything being done is at the request of Yosemite, so questions should be referred to them.
National Park Service workers were seen in the trailer park last week, apparently de-energizing the lines.
“The overhead electrical system that powers each trailer pad hookup in the trailer court has been de-energized,” Adamic said. “There is no other NPS infrastructure located in the trailer court that requires electricity.”
She said a water well there has been out of service for several years.
The trailer park is sandwiched between the hamlets of Old El Portal and Abbieville, where power won’t be shut off. El Portal is home to Yosemite employees and infrastructure needed to run Yosemite, including a waste water treatment facility, as part of what’s known as the El Portal Administrative Site.
Greg Magruder, a member of the El Portal Planning Advisory Committee, part of the Mariposa County Planning Department, previously referenced NPS infrastructure in the trailer court, but clarified last week that the NPS sewage lift station is in adjacent Abbieville, outside a current road closure to the trailer court.
The removal of trailer park residents
Adamic said all but one of the authorized tenants in the trailer court was employed by Yosemite Hospitality – a subsidiary of Aramark, Yosemite’s concessionaire – which informed NPS that they offered housing rentals in Yosemite Valley to all those employees. The remaining resident moved to housing outside the park, she said.
The closure of the trailer park was driven and conducted by Yosemite National Park, not Yosemite Hospitality.
However, for most Yosemite employees, including the affected trailer park residents, spouses, children and animals are not allowed in the Yosemite Valley dorms unless they are also employees, leaving some of the recently displaced individuals without housing of their own.
Adamic said trailer court residents were notified in letters on March 1 and March 11 that power would be shut off after they vacated the area on March 13.
Adamic didn’t say whether NPS went door-to-door to make sure residents had left first. Instead, she said Yosemite knew they left because NPS has been in close contact with Yosemite Hospitality as they moved into new housing, and that park staff are regularly patrolling and “there is no indication that any residents remain.”
When asked if official eviction paperwork had been served, Adamic didn’t directly respond, stating they were provided “written notice” on Dec. 13 that the trailer court would close in 90 days, “in accordance with the terms and conditions of government housing assignment agreements.”
This language states the federal government, “as the owner and manager of its housing,” only has to provide a 30-day notice – without acknowledging that the affected residents in El Portal own their mobile homes.
Residents told The Bee they had not received official eviction paperwork.
Robert Cortez, supervising attorney of nonprofit Central California Legal Services’ housing team, said it appears Yosemite, by shutting off their power now, has committed an act of constructive eviction without due process of law.
Locked gates were installed at the trailer park at the request of residents for security purposes as they work to remove their remaining belongings into April. After-dark access was granted to three individuals to accommodate their work schedules. Their mobile homes have no electricity now, however, to help them see while they pack in the dark.
The Bee has a pending request, covered by the Freedom of Information Act and California Public Records Act, for more information about the El Portal Trailer Park.
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 6:24 PM with the headline "National Park Service acknowledges changing its story over evictions near Yosemite."
