Desert slum gets a ‘new sheriff’

THERMAL, CALIF. —  Mark Adams smiled serenely as an industrial-sized Roto-Rooter truck noisily sucked thousands of gallons of raw sewage from a stinking pond.

“In some ways I have been training for this for the last 10 years,” he said, as the air around him began smelling more and more like a giant outhouse. “Now all of the pieces have fallen into place.”

Wearing a blue polo shirt, slacks and sunglasses, the neatly pressed Santa Monica lawyer seemed at ease, at home even, in the crumbling, sunbaked slum known as Duroville.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson last month appointed Adams, 57, temporary receiver of the infamous trailer park. That makes him, as Adams put it, “the new sheriff in town” and he hasn’t worn his authority lightly.

He immediately ordered drug tests for all park employees, firing three who refused to take part. Signs went up telling tenants to keep their dogs in the yard or lose them to the pound. All street parking has been banned under threat of towing. Four of eight backed up sewage ponds are being drained.

When the owners of a small market and a nearby clothing shop balked at hiring a security guard to keep drunks from loitering, Adams reminded them that he could replace their businesses with other ones or simply have them evicted.

They grudgingly agreed to split the cost for a guard.

“Maybe I can hire my son-in-law to do it,” said Jose Carello, owner of Silvia’s Market. “I wonder how much you have to pay them an hour? Do they need a uniform?”

A full-time security force, complete with uniforms and cars resembling police vehicles, has been hired to patrol the park.

Electricians inspected the 276 trailers and found 30 in need of immediate repair. In 10 trailers, the toilets had rotted through the floors and were sitting on the ground.

“I have cleaned up slums all over California but have taken on nothing as daunting as Duroville,” Adams said, as he strode the dusty roads between densely packed trailers. “The magnitude of this is amazing.”

His task is to do emergency repairs and take control of park finances. After 60 days he will make a recommendation to Larson on whether Duroville should stay open or be closed.

“There are a lot of imminent dangers to people who live here,” he said. “In the short term we can take steps to make it habitable. Whether we could do that permanently, that is up to Judge Larson.”

The U.S. attorney’s office has asked the judge to shut down the 40-acre park, which sits on the Torres Martinez reservation, saying it poses unacceptable safety risks to the 6,000 farm workers living there. Past inspections have turned up water quality violations, sewage beneath trailers, faulty electrical systems and trailers packed too closely together.

Larson has so far refused to close it for fear of making thousands homeless. He appointed Pierre-Richard Prosper, a former U.S. ambassador who investigated war crimes in Rwanda, and Jack Shine, president and chief executive of First Financial Group, as special masters to investigate conditions at the park. He made Adams provisional receiver. All three men will be paid a fee that the judge will later determine.

Adams, a Georgetown University graduate, has been appointed receiver by 15 judges in five counties for 21 properties over the last decade. At one job in Norco, he and his crew hauled off 1,100 tons of junk.

For Duroville, he has secured a $150,000 line of credit from a consortium of banks to finance repairs, with park owner Harvey Duro responsible for repaying whatever Adams spends. Adams said Duro, a member of the Torres Martinez tribe, has adopted a low profile but is cooperating.

In recent days, the park has been bustling. Trucks have drained sewage ponds and collected piles of garbage. Fencing has gone up for dog kennels. The new security force is taking shape.

Electrician Joe Ayon visited each mobile home to see what needed fixing.

Inside a trailer owned by Angela Lemos, he found only one outlet working, with numerous extension cords feeding off it. The cords were running under her carpet and up the walls.

“This represents a serious fire hazard,” Ayon said.

Lemos, 42, cradled her 4-month-old, Jimmy, as the men combed her trailer for more hazards. Three cages of doves were stacked up outside. She said she keeps them for their gentle cooing.

“I’m happy that they are cleaning the park,” Lemos said. “But I am worried about the electrical problems.”

Dangling wires hung in the back of 31-year-old Alisia Ortiz’s closet, her clothes pressed right up against them.

She was more concerned about the park closing.

“A lot of people are worried,” she said. “In my mind they won’t shut it down because there are so many people here. I hope not.”

Some residents said they had not worked in three months or were working fewer hours now. A frost dramatically reduced crop yields, so there is less to harvest. Park manager Jack Gradias said more and more rent checks were being paid by the local priest.

“When they ask for rent money we pay some of it,” said Father Eliseo Lucas Coronel of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mecca, which many Duroville residents attend. “Most of them make less than $15,000 a year. They may ask for $400 and I can give them maybe $250. Then I call the owner and tell them to be patient and not to throw them out. The only thing I ask in return is that they come to church and give thanks to God.”

The people are confused and frightened now, he said.

“They come to me and ask me what is going to happen,” he said. “And I say, ‘Lord, please tell me what to do.’ I am praying they will not close it down. It would be a disaster, but I need to plan for what to do if it happens.”

Adams is sympathetic to the residents’ plight and also hopes the place can be saved. His Catholic upbringing and education have fueled his passion for the project.

“I felt called to come here,” he said. “If the Jesuits who taught me knew what I was doing, it would make them happy.”

Still, he admits being shocked when he first heard of Duroville.

“We all read ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in high school and I was taught that the book led to the end of these kind of labor camps,” he said. “So when I read about this place in the Los Angeles Times last March, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, these places still exist 70 years later?’ ”

Adams thinks he has already eliminated the most pressing dangers. Now, soil samples will be taken. In 2003, a memo from the Environmental Protection Agency said carcinogens, including dioxin, PCBs and asbestos, were present in Duroville.

Before launching his plans, Adams met with tenants, explaining his goals with the aid of a translator. He received applause. But there is some resistance.

A day after signs went up banning street parking -- because it interferes with fire trucks navigating the narrow roads -- cars were still parked there.

“I really want to start the towing today. There are like 20 cars on the street,” Adams told the park manager. “Pull up to them and make a lot of noise so they’ll get the message.”

But the tow truck, a huge vehicle with no windshield, wouldn’t start and looked like it never had.

“We need to get another tow truck in here,” Adams declared.

A stray dog trotted past; a pat on its back producing a cloud of dust.

Adams walked over to the defunct community center, arguably the nicest building in the park and a rare shady spot.

“I’d like to open this up again, maybe for kids,” he said. “There is no place for kids to play and there are tons of kids here. Maybe make it into a library or something.”

He made a mental note to call a local nun well acquainted with such projects.

In front of Silvia’s Market he mused about staging a carnival to draw customers to the few local stores. “Like they have in Santa Monica,” he said, as a few sullen men eyed him from outside the self-service laundry. “This is the shopping district of Duroville.”

Gloria Posar, 46, walked past in a ragged shirt and fraying sandals.

“I like having these people here because the situation has gotten so bad over the last few years,” she said quietly, before scurrying off.

Adams has learned a lot of things in a few short weeks. One is that Duroville is more than an island of poverty.

“This is a real community here,” he said. “There is a list of people waiting to get in despite all the trouble because it’s the cheapest place to live at just $275 a month.”

And there are many Durovilles out there. Up and down the eastern Coachella Valley, the scarcity of affordable housing has filled up dozens of trailer parks with similar or even worse conditions. The tenants are nearly all farm workers.

“The more I see of Duroville the more I realize it’s just one of the problems out there. This is not an isolated case,” Adams said.

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david.kelly@latimes.com