Rivals Back Mobile Home Rent Control

Wooing voters in North County’s mobile home parks, both candidates for San Diego County supervisor in the 5th District said Monday they would support some form of rent control for parks in the unincorporated areas of the county.

Oceanside City Councilman John MacDonald said he supported a rent control ordinance in Oceanside and would work to get similar regulations approved as a county supervisor. MacDonald’s opponent, Escondido lawyer Clyde Romney, proposed a task force to suggest ways of mediating rent disputes in mobile home parks.

Romney, who earlier in the campaign said he opposed rent controls, said Tuesday he would support the kind of “rent stabilization” practiced in San Marcos. Under that ordinance, rent disputes are mediated by the City Council sitting as a rent commission, which holds public hearings if more than half of the residents receiving rent increases in a particular park complain.

The two candidates spoke before a handful of park residents at a forum sponsored by the Golden State Mobilhome Owners League, a tenants’ group. There are more than 100 mobile home parks in the 5th District, and their mostly elderly residents are aggressively courted because so many of them are active voters and political organizers.

“I support rent control for mobile home parks as a last resort,” MacDonald said. “I think it is a method that has to be used if no other solutions can be found.”

Romney, while avoiding stating his preference for a specific form of rent control, did endorse the concept, ruling out only what he called “strict controls” that do not include mediation and are based on formulas such as the cost-of-living index.

“Many counties and many jurisdictions here in San Diego County have successfully found rent ordinances using a variety of approaches,” Romney said. He said he proposed the task force “to see what we can do to provide the presence, the firepower, the influence of county government to protect our local mobile home park residents against greedy or overreaching mobile home park owners.”

Romney said the San Marcos ordinance was “working very well,” and he said he would agree to implement the same ordinance at the county if he could get the support of the Board of Supervisors. But he warned that it would be difficult to get three votes for rent control on the five-member board.

“I have four other members of this Board of Supervisors who are opposed to rent control ordinances,” Romney said. “One supervisor coming in from North County who thinks he’s going to run in there and kick butt on everybody else on this issue better go to work and find a way to persuade them that it is in the best interests of their residents in South Bay, East County and downtown San Diego as well.”

MacDonald and Romney both pledged to appoint a person to their staffs to handle the problems of senior citizens and mobile home residents.

Romney said he would name a part-time staff member and recruit volunteer senior interns to help solve constituents’ problems. MacDonald said he would appoint a full-time person, and he said he would name a committee of senior citizens to help select the staff member.

“I think it’s very important that this person be representing you and not somebody selected by me only because of political relationships or other criteria,” MacDonald said.