Flandreau man avoids jail by moving camper off property

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Brenda Wade Schmidt
Enterprise

A Flandreau resident was given the choice to remove his camper from his residential lot or go to jail.
Roger Hasvold chose to move his camper to the Royal River Casino campground until he can get into an apartment. He had been sleeping in the camper, powered by a generator. He wants to get a house on the four lots he owns on the south edge of town on East Broad Avenue.

Circuit Judge Patrick Pardy sentenced Hasvold on Dec. 3 to jail for being in contempt of court if he didn’t remove the camper by noon on Dec. 6. If he did remove it, the issue would go away, Pardy told Hasvold.
“I’m trying to give you every opportunity to find a place to get it moved,” Pardy said. “I’m doing everything I can to not have you locked up.”
Initially, Pardy ordered Hasvold to have the camper removed by Dec. 1 for being in violation of a city ordinance that prevents someone from living in a camper.
The city also wants him to clean up vehicles, trailers and other debris, but the city’s lawyer Paul Lewis said he will see how far the city wants to push it. It’s unusual that the judge ordered jail if Hasvold doesn’t comply, Lewis said. He told Hasvold that he doesn’t want him to go to jail so he needs to comply with the judge’s order.
Hasvold cited a city ordinance that says you can park vehicles on your lot as long as there is a structure. He has a shed on his property.
“I have a garage that has been there 40 years, and that’s a structure,” he said.
But Pardy said that was not the purpose of the contempt hearing and that if he wanted to plead not guilty and take the issue to trial, he had that right. Instead Hasvold, who appeared in court without a lawyer, pleaded guilty, saying he did live in his camper and hadn’t moved it by the Dec. 1 deadline.
Lewis said the ordinances that Hasvold brought to the hearing didn’t apply to the issue being discussed.
Hasvold and his son, William Hasvold, have said the city is targeting them, and the younger Hasvold said they should stop harassing his dad just because he doesn’t have much money.
“Everybody should be treated the same,” William Hasvold said. “We have done nothing to these people, nothing at all.”