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Owner: Plans to remove mobile homes progressing

Owner had been ordered to move the structures in dispute

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Plans for removing seven mobile homes from an East Freedom mobile home park are progressing, the homes’ owner recently advised a Blair County judge who was asked earlier this month to find the owner in contempt of court.

To address a longtime landlord-tenant dispute at Shaw Mobile Home Park, 8803 Woodbury Pike, Judge Timothy Sullivan issued an eviction order in September requiring removal of seven mobile homes registered to Larry Milby and Southern Christian Ministries.

While the order was initially put on hold pending an appeal to Superior Court, the appeal was rejected, prompting landlord Chyrell Pote and her attorney, Robert W. Lape, to file a petition with the court, asking that Milby be held in contempt for lack of compliance.

Moving the mobile homes is an “involved” process, Milby testified before Sullivan during a recent contempt hearing that recessed without a judicial ruling.

Before the recess, the judge asked Milby about selling the mobile homes to the tenants who live in them. Milby said the tenants told him that if they bought the structures, they had to move. But after admitting that he had no evidence in support of that claim, the judge called attorneys into his chambers, then recessed the hearing without a conclusion.

The judge is giving the parties more time to work on the arrangements, attorney Michael B. Cohen said on Milby’s behalf.

Milby testified that he found people interested in buying or acquiring the mobile homes, but they need time to find locations where they can move them. Milby also said he had to identify transporters. And before moving the mobile home where he and his wife had lived, a ramp and five trees have to be removed first, Milby said.

The moving process, he told the judge, also requires municipal permits and proof, from the local tax collector, that property taxes are paid.

Lape questioned Milby’s lack of progress by reminding him that Sullivan’s order was issued in September. Lape also asked Milby if he had paid the $100 a day fine that Sullivan included in the order for lack of compliance. Milby said he has paid no fine so far and advised that he thought that his appeal would have been successful.

On the day of the hearing, Milby said that one of the seven homes referenced in the judge’s order had been removed. Plans were in place, he said, for removal of a second mobile home while arrangements to move the others are ongoing.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.

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