Lakeland Woman Pleads for Help As 5

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For 10 months, Cathi Collini has been watching a hole outside her home in the Georgetowne Manor Mobile Home Park at Ariana Street and South Westgate Avenue deepen and inch ever closer to the $4,000 air-conditioning unit that she had installed in 2021.

At first, she thought it might be a sinkhole. But the hole — which is about 4 feet deep and 5 feet wide — is actually from a cracked and failing sewer line that backs up and saturates the ground every time it rains.

“There’s several clay pipes — they’re old and busted,” said Collini, 58, who works from home for an architectural firm. “All the sewer pipes are busted and they’re letting the dirt in.”

There may be other factors complicating the situation as well.

While Collini points to broken sewer pipes, the out-of-state corporate owners’ management says in addition to aging sewer lines, flooding inside the park is being caused by a city drain that’s not draining and a clogged county drainage pipe along Ariana Street.

County officials say anything happening inside the park is the city’s responsibility. City officials say anything happening along Ariana Street is the county’s responsibility, adding that the park has hired a private contractor to make repairs.

But all Collini knows is that every time it rains heavily, a small pond forms outside her back door and the hole gets larger — and closer to her home. She’s also concerned about sewage that might be in the hole.

“They have done nothing and the hole is going to swallow my air conditioner,” she said on Monday. “The last rain we had flooded the streets all the way to the back of the park!”

Between June 27, when LkldNow first saw the hole, and July 13, it grew several inches wider and about a foot deeper, toppling a caution sign that park management had placed at its edge.

The 55+ mobile home park, which was established in 1964 and has 188 lots, is owned by Inspire Communities of Phoenix. Originally known as Vinoy Manor, it has operated as Georgetowne Mobile Manor since at least 1971.

Dana Codori, Inspire’s regional support specialist for North and Central Florida, emailed Collini on June 23 and told her the hole was the city’s responsibility.

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“The city drain is not draining, causing flooding in the community and the surrounding homes. The sewer line is scheduled to be replaced in July, vendor compliance required, weather delays possible,” Codori wrote in the email, which Collini shared with LkldNow. “Please continue to call the city to clear the drain, as our management will as well. I will discuss with (the local manager) to continue to secure you’re (sic) A/C. This is the city drain that is not draining and the approximate area of sewer line replacement.”

At first, city Communications Director Kevin Cook said city commissioners and the mayor had not been alerted to a problem. But this week, he said it is a sewer line project.

“This project is being performed by a contractor and is not directly related to the City of Lakeland. It is a private sewer system owned by Georgetowne Manor Mobile Home Park,” Cook said. “This work is being completed at the cost of a third-party developer that will repair (the) leaking sewer main.”

But neither Collini nor LkldNow could get an answer as to when the work will start.

Jay Jarvis, director of roads and drainage for Polk County, said their pipes on Ariana Street are clear and working properly, but Florida’s summer showers have become more like mini-tropical storms, often dumping several inches of rain in a very short period.

“Our responsibility is to ensure that the drainage system is functioning as best as it can,” Jarvis said Wednesday afternoon. “Everything appears to be open, but when you get too much rain too quickly — these types of rain, real intense downpours in a short period of time — the system can’t handle it. They’ll drain. It’s moving. It’s just not moving fast enough.”

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He said he has gotten calls about flooding along Ariana and described the system in that area as confined to the roadway itself and the roadside drainage system.

“A lot of the drainage cuts across private property and goes under roadways,” Jarvis said. “it’s just a system that has certain limits to it. We can certify the cross drains are open, but beyond the right of way we can’t really do anything. The parts that go through private property, I can’t tell you. I don’t have the authority to go in there. Then you start getting into those issues that are typically addressed by private property owners and the Department of Environmental Protection.”

Pollution notices filed with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection show that a city-owned pump station at 1501 Ariana St. — the street address of Georgetowne Manor — has overflowed at least five times in the past six years:

Virginia Campbell, a regional manager for Inspire Communities, said the company has signed a contract with a third-party company to fix the hole.

“We continuously keep filling the hole,” Campbell said. “I’ll be out there Monday to talk with the resident to make sure she is satisfied. I just want to make sure she’s happy and put eyes on it myself.”

When told that, Collini said they were filling it in, but have stopped.

“It’s not filled and she has been told that filling it is only adding to the problem because the dirt is going into the sewer pipe that is already blocked,” Collini said. “It’s just going to wash it away every time it rains. It is a bandaid that they have been utilizing for the last literal year! And meanwhile, the hole creeps ever more close to my air conditioner.”

Collini said one of the vendors the park has been speaking with told her his company has had a bid in for months, but the corporate owners “won’t pull the trigger.”

Campbell said she wasn’t in her office and did not have the name of the vendor, but would provide it. She did not.

Collini said she and several neighbors are discussing withholding their lot rent until this is fixed.

“I’m thinking I need to put my rent in escrow,” she said. “I can’t just see giving them money.”

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Kimberly C. Moore, who grew up in Lakeland, has been a print, broadcast and multimedia journalist for more than 30 years. Before coming to LkldNow in the spring of 2022, she was a reporter for four years with The Ledger, first covering Lakeland City Hall and then Polk County schools. She is the author of “Star Crossed: The Story of Astronaut Lisa Nowak," published by University Press of Florida. Reach her at [email protected] or 863-272-9250.