Duroville No Duh

Harvey Duro, the infamous developer/owner/operator of the mobile home park known throughout the valley as Duroville, is standing on ignorance as his defense for the acknowledged "Third World" conditions that exist at the park. Although he acknowledges that there are problems, he still believes that he can (cosmetically) gloss over them and allow the approximately 5000 people living in the 300 trailers to continue to do so.

No one ever provided him with a task list, he lamented, so he had no idea how extensive the issues were and/or what to do to address them.

Really? A quick walk through the park, around the open cesspools created by the residents to deal with human waste, probably would have been a first clue. The one power pole from which over 100 illegal connections blossomed like leaves on the tree might have been another. The lack of paved roads; the lack of adequate water sources; the packs of roaming feral animals: any of these obvious indications of the living conditions could have been picked up on by even a casual observer of the conditions. Simply noting these conditions exist would have been the beginning of a task list.

Or, we could again refer to the past three years spent in a courtroom dealing with allegation after allegation after allegation. Or the on-site visit from the Grand Jury: that could have spawned a to-do list. Or the repeated actions taken by the BIA to shut the place down. Or the day that the wrecking crews arrived and tore down all of the tacked-on temporary shelters. Any of these concrete actions during the past 3 years should have been enough of a task list for this man to DO SOMETHING!

If it were my decision to make, I'd arrest the owner for reckless endangerment, bulldoze the park, and begin the work of dealing with the huge field of human waste that covers the desert floor, creating both an environmental hazard, as well as a health hazard. And I'd take my own sweet time going through the legal system with his case so he got to sit in jail for at least the 3 years that he has fought the system and accepted rent payments from all these residents of his fine resort.