Cedar RV Park situation escalates

COEUR d’ALENE — The yearlong saga of the Cedar Motel and RV Park’s failed septic system escalated this week after residents discovered they will all be evicted.

Terry Raymond has an RV in the park and said he is the one who recently discovered the motel and RV park had sold to the Hagadone Corp., which is set to take ownership of the empty property in May.

“I get what’s going on here. I know that Duane (Hagadone) bought the property and wants to clean up this end of town and I commend him for that,” Raymond said. He said his beef is with the current property owner, Ron Ayers.

The Hagadone Corp. owns the Coeur d’Alene Press.

Raymond said when the septic system started to fail again — just as it did a year ago — he contacted the property owner to tell him that he was not going to pay his rent until the septic system was fixed.

In return, he got a notice to vacate the property within three days.

The city condemned the septic system last year after raw sewage began seeping up through the ground. At the time, Ayers was given a certain amount of time to connect to the city’s sewer system, according to City Attorney Mike Gridley.

“I think it happened last summer, around the time Ironman was in town,” Gridley said, adding that the odor was prominent along the biking course.

Technically, Gridley said, Ayers should have connected to the city sewer one year after Hagadone built his condominiums by The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course.

But Gridley said Ayers was not sure at the time what he intended to do with the property, so the connection was never made. When the septic system began failing last year and Ayers was still not connected to the sewer, the city began taking enforcement action.

“We sent him a Notice to Title Property,” Gridley said. He said the city backed away from the legal process when it heard Hagadone had purchased the property.

Gridley said the city was going to connect the property to the sewer, and then force Ayers to pay for the costs of doing so.

However, Gridley said the city was assured that the Hagadone Corp. was going to connect the property to the sewer after deciding how it intends to use the land.

“When it costs six figures to configure a sewer system for that property without knowing what’s going in there, we understand,” Gridley said. “We are somewhat sympathetic to that.”

Dan Davis, owner of Property Research, brokered the purchase for Hagadone.

Davis said this whole thing started nine years ago when Hagadone made an offer on the property, and learned the septic system had been condemned.

He said the city was going to shut off the water and sewer to the property and vacate the RV park, but then backed off during the transfer of the property. Gridley said the city wasn’t interested in tying up the property in an unnecessary legal process.

As part of the sale, Davis said Hagadone held back a little more than $100,000 to assist with the demolition of the buildings and to help relocate the residents.

“Apparently he (Ayers) just started to do this and so he gave them three-day notices to get out,” Davis said, adding some of those residents have contacted the media.

Davis said the $100,000 is held in an escrow account; if the buildings are not demolished or if any residents remain, Hagadone will use those funds to clean up the property and help the residents relocate.

If Ayers does that himself, he keeps the $100,000, Davis said.

Davis said once Hagadone takes possession of the property, he will remove the septic tanks and remediate the property until he decides what to do with it.

When contacted by cellphone Wednesday, Ayers said he would email a statement to The Press explaining his side of the story. As of press time, The Press had not received that statement.