HUNTINGTON BEACH : Mobile Home Park Gets Extra Policing

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg has ordered extra patrols of Huntington Shorecliffs mobile home park, whose residents complained to the City Council that vandals have been bombarding their homes with rocks.

“We’ll work with the citizens of the area to try to reduce the problems,” he told residents who had come to the council meeting and suggested that tenants form a neighborhood watch organization. Shorecliffs is a 308-unit park for tenants older than 54 at 20701 Beach Blvd.

Resident Barbara L. Broel, who led the tenants group, said later that she was somewhat encouraged by the city’s response, particularly after Assistant City Administrator Ray Silver paid a visit to her home Tuesday.

But she said Lowenberg’s suggestion of a neighborhood watch group will not do. “We already watch each other,” she said.

Broel said vandals gather at a low masonry wall and have thrown rocks, cans of beer, pumpkins and even a golf club at her home.

Besides calling for extra patrols, Broel has asked city officials to increase the height of the wall that bounds the park on Frankfort and Delaware streets. If that cannot be done, she suggested that wrought iron or some other device be installed so that vandals no longer can sit and loiter on the wall.

Tenants say that in the last year they have reported a burglary, the theft of two cars and the destruction of 23 oleander bushes.

Police said they have received numerous reports of malicious mischief and disturbances of the peace at the park. The complaints are on a par with those at other mobile home parks in the city, according to Lt. Charles R. Poe.