SOUNDING OFF:

It is ironic that the majority on the City Council supports the extravagant $23-million “Palace in the Park” project — the so-called senior center — while at the same time, those council members seem unwilling to fight to preserve the mobile-home ordinance. That ordinance was passed to protect the residents of mobile homes from the greed of park owners. The ordinance is now under attack in the courts and there is nothing but silence from City Hall.

It appears that some council members put a higher priority on providing luxurious recreation accommodations for seniors than they do on protecting seniors’ homes. It’s the “let them eat cake” syndrome.

But wait! Maybe the council is planning ahead to the time when hundreds of mobile-home residents could be forced out of their homes by greedy park owners. Some mobile-park owners want to close down their parks in hopes of cashing in on development projects. In that case, it would make sense to build an enormous, 45,000-square-foot senior center. It could be used as a homeless shelter for all the seniors who would have no place to live should the mobile home parks be closed down.