The Saco City Council met on December 15, 2025, to address a packed agenda including a proposed extension of an emergency moratorium on mobile home park lot rent increases, consent items, public hearings, and two new business items. A large crowd of Blue Haven Mobile Home Park residents testified in favor of a longer moratorium, citing transparency, safety, and financial hardship concerns. The council ultimately voted unanimously to extend the moratorium by 60 days (to February 13, 2026) and moved several other items forward.
Like a let the record reflect that all members are present this evening, including City Administrator Prescott. And would you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you, everyone. Moving on to item number four this evening. There is nothing under general. Item five is committee correspondence to council. Are there any committee members wishing to speak Council Redwards? Thank you, Mayor. Um Sacco Main Street. I'm thanking everyone and thanking the council on their behalf for a wonderful event uh and a wonderful day last Saturday culminating with the Festival of Lights. It was pretty good, even though it was cold. Hopefully the warmth and love shared by Sacco residents and other visitors warmed it up a little bit, plus some hot cocoa. So thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay, not seeing anyone seeking recognition. Moving on to item number six, that is public comment tonight. I will go by the list where you have signed up first, and if you have not signed up, we will get to you after. And for the sake of time this evening, where we do have a very large crowd, I am going to stick to the three-minute mark. Um you will speak for three minutes. We will not be going over again so that everyone on the list and not on the list has an opportunity to speak. So first off, tonight we do have Kathy Dobbin. Please state your name and record for the address, and you will have three minutes. Hello, thank you for having us. I'm Kathy Dobbins. I live at 28 Meserve Circle, and I'm here tonight to ask you to extend the current emergency moratorium another 60 days and begin looking at the process of enacting 180-day moratorium. The reason behind this request from the residents is that we had a notice taped to our door November 21st and had a town hall meeting with the uh park ownership on December 9th. You have a transcript of that meeting that I sent to everybody, and along with a packet of information we gave you, including the letters and all of the correspondence we've had with park ownership and the inconsistencies we're finding. The letter that we received raised some serious issues. The first being threats and intimidation, inaccurate and misleading information, and lack of transparency. So when I say threats and imitation imitation imitation, the rent increase is paused. The letter contained failed threats that if we continued down this road, that improvement in main maintenance would not be done. It hasn't been done in five years. Where is our lot rent going? They are a nonprofit. They have not provided any documentations to the reason for this rent increase, other than it was the law, and then they started to represent the new laws in Maine, mainly LD 1723 and LD 1016. And their whole hung up hang up on 1016 is the $10,000 per lot rent on sales for an equity firms over 50 million dollars. That only applies if they're selling. Three or four weeks before we got our letter for lot rent increases. Maine has a first right of refusal law. We have not been notified that the park is up for sale at all. New Hampshire just got their notice last week, and they're meeting with ownership tomorrow to discuss that notice. And they listed on the website, which I provided you a copy of their portfolio that they know Maine and New Hampshire both have first right of refusal laws. So I urge you to look into extending the current moratorium to protect residents while we get clarification on if we are for sale and make sure the inaccuracy stop so that even if the 60 days go as in effects 180 days is what we need because we have thought legal counsel and we are in the process of obtaining legal counsel to represent us in mediation going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Folks, I will ask that we do keep the auditorium quiet, please. Thank you. Uh next on the list we do have Sarah Gardner. Okay.