| Nixon orders local home dealer to make good on contracts
A Springfield manufactured homes dealer who failed to deliver homes or provide refunds on two contracts has been ordered to do so in a preliminary injunction obtained Thursday by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. Michael Jackson of Branson, who does business as Dogwood Homes, 3800 W. Sunshine, and his mother, Kay Jackson, the business office manager, are defendants in the case. Thursdays order requires Dogwood Homes to make good on a contract with a Springfield man who paid $52,000 in October for delivery of a modular home and demolition and cleanup of his original home, which burned down. The company has not completed any of those jobs, and to date has refunded $2,500 of the customers down payment. Dogwood Homes must complete that job by May 7, according to the order. The company also must refund within a week a $500 deposit to a Wisconsin man who ordered a mobile home in 2005.
Mobile home residents express concerns
Not only is she still working to pay her mortgage and rent at the Hacienda Mobile Home Park in Pleasanton, she and her neighbors are embroiled in a battle with the park owner over unfair rent increases and unanswered maintenance requests. This week, for the second time in six years, park residents showed up at a City Council meeting showing their frustration and unity by wearing red shirts to urge the city to help them reach a resolution with park owner, Philip Hoon. Residents at the Vineyard Avenue park are particularly frustrated because a rent-stabilization agreement between Hoon and the city lapsed in December. Hoon has since been granted two extensions, the last of which expires in July. Residents say Hoon is notoriously unresponsive, and that while they have waited for him to make property improvements, he recently raised park rents.
Trailer parks house people, not trash
The porch is stacked full of wicker furniture. Inside, boxes with labels like "big fish" and "little fish" fill the living room. A stack of bedding - sheets, blankets, pillow and sleeping bag - is neatly folded on the end of the couch.
Green is in that pre-moving limbo, where the TV and VCR still are plugged in, but the dishwasher isn't.
His move is more uncertain than most. Green lives in a 1970 Champion double-wide trailer - essentially, a worthless home. As of June 20, the optimistically named White Manor Mobile Home Park where he lives will disappear under 33 new condominiums. He can't afford the $12,000 bill to move his old trailer - if another mobile home park even would take it. They probably wouldn't. And the cost of hauling it away is more than the home is worth.
Manufactured Landscapes (Canadian Version)
It'll test your patience at times, but that certainly doesn't mean Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes (2006) isn't worth your time and attention. This slow-burning documentary combines striking images by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky with footage shot at the original locations, creating what some might call a "moving exhibition". This series of photographs includes landscapes and people directly affected by industry---and though the initial idea came to Burtynsky in Pennsylvania over 20 years ago, it flourished more recently in enormous Chinese factories like the one above. The latter environment sets the tone for Manufactured Landscapes; during the opening sequence, a camera pans across the massive factory floor for roughly eight minutes. The scope of the workers' production is fully realized but never explained in detail; more than anything else, it simply shows consumers how their consumables are made.
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