Fraud Alleged in El Monte Mobile Home Petition Drive

The district attorney’s office, responding to allegations of election fraud, has begun investigating the petition process used to get a referendum on the city’s mobile home park rent-arbitration ordinance on the June ballot.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ed Feldman said he is investigating, among other things, an allegation that some of the petition circulators perjured themselves by saying falsely that they were residents or registered voters in El Monte, a violation of the state Election Code.

The referendum could void a city ordinance that provides a two-step system of arbitration in rent and service disputes between mobile home park owners and residents in the city’s four largest parks.

The ordinance, which was passed in December but has not gone into effect pending the outcome of the vote, creates a rent review commission that would have final say if a committee of owners and residents cannot agree on rent increases.

The five-member commission would consist of two residents, two park owners and an outside mediator. The mediator would be appointed by the city if the other four commissioners could not agree.

Lying Alleged

Mobile home residents, who back the ordinance, have charged that three of the eight people who gathered signatures on the referendum petitions lied when they said they were registered to vote in El Monte.

The circulators were hired by the owners of one park, who oppose the ordinance. They gathered the signatures of more than 10% of the city’s 21,147 registered voters to force the measure onto the ballot.

Roy F. Kiser and Donald E. Smith, co-chairmen of Homeowners for Yes on 2216, which opposes the referendum, said two circulators listed addresses that do not exist. They said they could not find any evidence that a third circulator lived at the address listed as her residence.

“We’re going to be looking into at least one of the allegations,” Feldman said last week. “However, that doesn’t mean we’ve come to the conclusion that there has been any wrongdoing.”

Inquiry Limited

Feldman said he does not expect the investigation to be completed before June 7, when Proposition A goes to a vote. He said the investigation would be limited to possible criminal violations involving perjured declarations and would not affect the election.

Park residents tried unsuccessfully two weeks ago to get the City Council to pull the issue off the ballot. Kiser and Smith said the district attorney’s investigation lends credence to their contention that opponents of the ordinance, primarily the owners of the 421-space Brookside Mobile Home Country Club, defrauded the public in the drive to qualify the referendum.

“Based on what we have told (the district attorney), they’re convinced that there is a possibility that something is wrong,” Kiser said. “Our suspicions are going to be confirmed.”

But political consultant Harvey Englander of Campaign Management Inc., the Newport Beach firm hired to get the referendum on the ballot, said that all the signatures on the petitions were valid and that improprieties involving circulators should not affect their validity.

“If there was anyone who lied, they should be prosecuted,” said Englander, who was hired by Brookside owners Tom Tatum and Jeffrey Kaplan to try to defeat the ordinance.

$2 per Signature

Englander said the circulators, who were recruited through newspaper advertisements, were paid $2 for each valid signature.

“You don’t invalidate a signature of a person signing a petition because of a potentially accidental mistake by a circulator,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, 2,135 voters signed a petition saying ‘We don’t want this law.’

“Just because someone may live on the border of El Monte or South El Monte doesn’t change the fact that the people signed that petition.”

City Clerk Kathleen Kaplan said the signatures obtained by one circulator were not counted in qualifying the referendum because the woman lives in South El Monte. But even without those 281 signatures, the referendum received 20 signatures more than the 2,115 required to force the election, she said.

That circulator is not one of the three whose petitions are being contested by the mobile home residents. Backers of the ordinance argue that the county registrar-recorder’s office would have invalidated the signatures collected by those three circulators if the allegations had been raised before the signatures were certified. The registrar-recorder’s office referred all questions to the El Monte city attorney.

Removal Sought

The City Council was asked to take the referendum off the ballot at a special May 3 meeting because of the allegations of fraud. It instructed the city attorney to find out whether the council had the authority to do so.

But City Atty. David Gondek said the council did not have the power to strike the proposition from the ballot after the signatures had been verified by the county registrar-recorder.

“Even if every referendum circulator lied when they filed, even if that happened, there is not a basis to invalidate the election,” Gondek told the council.

Under state law, the petition process may be challenged after the election, Gondek said. It would then be up to the state attorney general’s office to conduct an investigation, which could lead to court action invalidating the election, he said.

“The courts have repeatedly stated the strong preference for post-election consideration of allegation of impropriety or invalidity,” he said.

Support From Mayor

Mayor Don McMillen, who backs the ordinance, said he regrets that the measure is on the ballot, but he urged the mobile home residents to beat the park owners at the polls.

“I wish the residents a lot of luck on this one,” McMillen told mobile home residents at the May 3 meeting. “I want to see the tenants win this election.”

The ordinance would apply to Brookside, the 175-space Daleview Mobile Home Estates, the 104-space Santa Fe Mobile Park and the 76-space El Rovia Trailer Village. But Brookside is the only El Monte park actively fighting the ordinance.

Emotion is expected to figure prominently in the campaign, in which mobile home park residents say their way of life is at stake.

“We have people who pray each night that they die before their rent increases again,” Smith said.

Increases Averaged 12%

Kiser, 68, who has lived in Brookside since 1976, said the ordinance is needed to combat rent increases that have averaged 12% or more annually since Tatum and Kaplan bought it in 1984.

“When you figure that cost of living went up 3 to 5%, it makes a heck of a hardship on someone with a fixed income,” said Kiser, who added that his rent has increased from $233 in 1984 to $350 today.

According to a survey conducted by residents, the average age of tenants in the four parks is 69, and most of them live on fixed incomes, Kiser said.

Englander said two city-sponsored rent surveys conducted by outside firms show that Brookside rents are at or below the average at comparable parks nearby. In 1986, the year both surveys were conducted, Brookside rents were the same as the reported average of the other parks in one survey and $37 less than those in the second survey.

But Councilman Ernest Gutierrez said both samplings were taken in parks whose residents had higher incomes than those at Brookside.

‘Real Problems’

“Comparability is a very elusive term . . . there’s no two animals alike,” said Gutierrez, who also supports the ordinance. “It made it look like Brookside was paying very little. But those people are barely making it, so when the survey came back and said they should be paying even more, I had some real problems with it.”

But Englander argues that residents are trying to live the good life at the expense of the city and park owners.

“These are people who live in a very elite enclave and want the rest of the city to subsidize them,” he said. “When you have rent control, property taxes go down.

“That means the rest of the city will have to pay for services that mobile home park residents will use,” he said.

Moreover, Englander said, the rent ordinance would mean an end to rent subsidies that Brookside has been giving some of the very low- income residents in the park.

“The park owners cannot operate under Proposition A and pay the subsidies they are now,” he said.

Privacy Cited

But Englander declined to identify tenants or say how many people were getting subsidies, citing the need to preserve the privacy of those receiving the breaks.

“We do not give out the exact numbers, and there are people who don’t want their neighbors to know they are getting subsidies,” he said.

Both sides agree that the fight over the petitions is a prelude to what is expected to be a heated campaign.

“It’s going to be down and dirty,” said Smith, 62, who has lived in Brookside since 1984. “From what we’ve already seen, we know it’s going to be vicious.”

Englander concurred.

‘Never Pleasant’

“These things are never pleasant,” he said. “But we’re going to run an above-board campaign and try to stay away from the hysterics.” Ordinance backers allege that the fraud went beyond phony addresses, saying the circulators gave false information as well.

“There’s really a question about the whole election process,” said Jill Barad, the homeowners’ campaign consultant. “If they did that, how did they present the petitions to the voters?

“If they lied about one thing, they could have lied about something else,” she said. “How can you justify an election that would not have happened had it not been for fraudulent practices?”

Misled Voters

Smith charged that the circulators misled voters, telling them the referendum would give residents a break on their rent.

“I have neighbors who said they were stopped by circulators and told it was for rent control,” he said.

Englander denied any improprieties in presenting the issues and said residents were making last-ditch attempts to damage the opposition.

Englander said Brookside has budgeted enough money to finance an all-out campaign and plans mailers and phone appeals to the city’s voters. As of mid-March, Englander’s group had spent $33,700, according to a campaign disclosure statement.

Englander is a veteran of several major political campaigns. He has worked for Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder and the statewide insurance initiative sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles).

‘Running Out of Money’

By contrast, residents claim they lack the resources to mount a sophisticated campaign. They have not filed a campaign disclosure statement. Smith said they expect to spend less than $15,000.

“We’re running out of money,” Smith said, adding that he fears the opposition will spend enough money to “buy an election.”

Residents also say the decision by the Brookside management to stop allowing a polling place on park grounds is an attempt to discourage elderly voters. However, Englander said the high cost of insurance and liability forced the owners to disallow the polling place, reflecting a statewide trend.

“It just so happens that it coincides with the June election,” he said.

Smith and Barad charge that removing the polling place denied elderly residents, some of whom have limited mobility, access to the polls.

“Taking their polling place away, now that’s a cheap shot,” Barad said.