Initiative Waylaid, Carson Group Says

A spokeswoman for a group of mobile-home park owners has accused Carson City Clerk Helen Kawagoe, who lives in a mobile home, of attempting to sabotage an anti-rent control ballot initiative aimed at such tenants.

City Atty. Glenn Watson, speaking for Kawagoe, who suffered a recent death in her family, termed the accusation “a cheap shot” and said Kawagoe acted properly, following state law and his advice.

Ann Stewart Brown, a political consultant for a group of mobile home owners seeking to weaken the city’s mobile home rent control ordinance, said Kawagoe had pre-stamped signature withdrawal forms to help initiative opponents beat a deadline for removing their names from the petitions. People who signed petitions but wished to retract their signatures were required by law to submit withdrawal forms the day before the petitions were turned in. The clerk’s office received the petitions, which must be turned in at one time, on Wednesday.

Brown made the charges in a letter sent Thursday to Watson and the City Council, and repeated them in an interview Saturday. In the letter, she pointed out that Kawagoe lives in a mobile home and would be affected by the ordinance.

Brown also charged that Kawagoe delayed processing the petitions when they were turned in and that the city clerk is delaying transmittal of the petitions to county elections officials who must verify the signatures.

Chief Deputy Clerk Wanda Higaki said Friday that she was unsure if the petitions, which contain 6,355 signatures, could be turned over to the county on Monday. There were about 150 withdrawal forms filed, she said.

Expedited handling of the petitions by the city is crucial to the initiative proponents, Concerned Citizens of Carson, because the county can take up to 30 days to verify the signatures.

It would be possible to place the initiative on the November ballot if county officials verify the signatures before July 28, Brown said. But if they take the full 30 days, the question of setting an election would come before the council after the agenda is set for its Aug. 2 meeting, too late to make the November ballot unless a special meeting were called, she said.

Brown said Saturday that her group will mount a recall against Kawagoe “for flagrant abuse of power” and “illegal attempts to deprive Carson citizens of their constitutional right to vote” if the county does not receive the petitions Monday.

In addition, the group has sent a copy of the letter to the secretary of state’s elections division and will request an investigation Monday, Brown said.

Watson conceded that Kawagoe had date-stamped a single blank retraction form on June 20, but said she merely meant to indicate that the form, which was copied by opponents of the ballot measure, met legal requirements.

“If I had had my choice,” he said, “I would have had a different way of marking the withdrawal request form.”

Contention Rejected

He rejected the contention that the single blank form with the June 20 date could be copied, then used repeatedly to beat the July 5 deadline, since only the original would bear the date stamped in colored ink. He said it is not possible that more than one name could be withdrawn using that predated form.

Watson added that Kawagoe, acting on his advice, had first counted the names on the petitions to ensure that they represented more than 15% of the registered voters--the minimum needed to force a special election. If the petitions were signed by 10% of city voters, the question would be put on the next regular municipal ballot in 1990.

The petitions, with 6,355 signatures, contained 517 more than the 5,838 needed to make up 15% of the electorate and force a special election.

Kawagoe has said she would not authorize overtime to expedite the handling of the petitions.

Watson said the clerk was within her rights to wait a few days, if other operations in her office required it, before turning over the petitions to county officials, providing that the verification process took no more than 30 days.

“So what is the static? I guess they are saying she should try to get them out in less than 30 days,” Watson said.

Brown, whose group is hoping to get enough signatures verified to make the November ballot, said, “I have never heard of a city taking this long in my entire life.”

Under the initiative, only people qualifying for federal poverty guidelines would remain under rent control. For a four-person family, the limit on annual income would be $19,150; for an individual, $13,400.

Rents for others would remain controlled for the first two years after the measure takes effect. During those years, annual rent increase would be limited to 9%.