The Lyon County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday signed off on a letter from Southwest Health and Human Services to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison asking for assistance in the enforcement of licensing and/or closure of the Cedar Lane Manufactured Home Park in Tracy.
“The Tracy city attorney and the Southwest Health and Human Services attorney have agreed that we’re to the point where this should be the Attorney General’s area,” Lyon County Board Chair Todd Draper said at Tuesday’s meeting.
It was unanimously agreed that Draper sign the letter in support of asking Ellison to address the issue.
According to said letter from SWHHS attorney William Toulouse, Cedar Lane has been operating a manufactured home park without a valid license since Nov, 24, 2025.
SWHHS previously revoked Cedar Lane’s license for its failure to obtain an approved evacuation/shelter plan by the City of Tracy, and in the alternative, its failure to construct an approved storm shelter on its premises.
Cedar Lane has continued to operate its park without providing the necessary protections for its residents against storms and severe weather, SWHHS says. Since many of the residents of Cedar Lane lack the capability to obtain adequate shelter in a short period of time, they are left exposed “to the potential of significant harm in the event of severe weather.”
SWHHS, the licensing agent in the matter, has exhausted all of its applicable options to remedy and enforce the provisions of Minn. Stat. 327, the letter said. Pursuant to Minn. Stat. 144.99; there are enforcement provisions available for violations Minn. Stat. 327.
Such enforcement provisions fall under Minn. Stat. 8.31 which references additional duties of the Attorney General, and as such, SWHHS is requesting that the Office of the Attorney General bring enforcement action against Cedar Lane for operating a mobile home park without a license.
Additionally, Cedar Lane is noncompliant in plumbing and sewage disposal requirements, the letter states — issues that remain unaddressed and negatively affect Cedar Lane residents.
In June 2021, SWHHS issued a violation requiring that Cedar Lane comply with the law and submit a City of Tracy-approved storm shelter or evacuation plan. According to SWHHS’s findings of fact, Jason Kloss Environmental Health Manager at SWHHS, served a Notice of Non-Compliance to assumedowner Mike Grover on June 6, 2025, advising that Cedar Lane was not in compliance with Minnesota law for failure to construct a storm shelter or have an approved evacuation plan.
The SWHHS board held a license suspension hearing on Sept. 23, 2025, in Marshall with Grover, at which time he was able to testify about things like a permanent storm shelter or evacuation plan. As of the day of the meeting, SWHHS had not received such a plan and still hasn’t.
In the past, the Veterans Memorial Center had been made available to Cedar Lane residents in case of a weather emergency, but the City made it clear that there was no guarantee it would be open outside of working hours.
“This is irritating to me, because the City of Tracy went ahead and made an application for Mr. Grover, and he would’ve got grant dollars to build (a shelter),” said Lyon County Commissioner Gary Crowley, who also sits on the SWHHS board. “He refused to sign it.”
Draper stressed that it’s the tenants of the park who should be the main concern.
“They’re the ones being targeted here,” said Draper. “They want to live there … they’ve asked for help — that’s their home. Now there’s talk that (the owner) may have a private individual that wants to buy it and sell it for real estate property.”
Draper said there has been a discussion with United Community Action Partnership as to where the tenants could find housing if they were to be displaced.
“We don’t want to put anybody out on the street,” he said. “We didn’t at that time come up with a lot of places for them to go. It’s going to come down to if the attorney general is going to do something about this.”
