El Monte Sets Vote on Mobile Home Rent Law for 1990

EL MONTE — Although a landlord-sponsored petition to change the city’s mobile home rent ordinance received enough signatures to be placed on the November ballot, the City Council Tuesday delayed a citywide vote until 1990.

The petition, sponsored by the owners of Brookside Mobile Home Estates, would establish a rent subsidy program to replace the ordinance, which provides mandatory arbitration in rent disputes between mobile home park owners and residents.

It would also preclude the council from passing any ordinance that would affect rents at mobile home parks.

12.3% of Voters

Opponents of the ordinance submitted a petition with 4,727 signatures in July. Last week, the county registrar-recorder qualified 2,617 names, or 12.3% of the city’s 21,245 registered voters, City Clerk Kathleen Kaplan said.

Under the state Elections Code, the city would have had to place the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot if the petitioners had gathered 3,186 valid signatures, representing 15% of the city’s voters, according to City Atty. David F. Gondek.

Gondek said signatures from 10% or more of the city’s voters also qualified the measure for a vote. But because the number fell short of 15%, the City Council has the discretion to schedule the measure in November or at the next regularly scheduled election.

A third option would have been for the council to pass the proposed ordinance, he said.

Mayor Don McMillen and Councilmen Ernest Gutierrez and Dan Morgan voted to place the initiative on the April, 1990, ballot. Councilman Jeff Marrone, who voted against the ordinance in December, opposed the move. Councilman Jack Crippen was absent.

City Ordinance 2216, passed in December, survived a June referendum by a vote of 4,108 to 3,688. That ballot measure was also engineered by Brookside owners Jeffrey Kaplan and Tom Tatum. Both petition drives were conducted by political consultant Harvey Englander and his Newport Beach firm, Campaign Management Inc.

Arbitration System

The ordinance, which covers parks of 60 spaces or more, provides a two-step system of arbitration in rent and service disputes between residents and park owners from whom they rent their lots.

It establishes a 5-member commission consisting of two park residents, two park owners and an outside mediator to be appointed by the city if the other four commissioners cannot agree on the fifth member. The commission will have final say if a committee composed of park managers and homeowners cannot settle their dispute.

Besides 421-space Brookside, the ordinance covers 175-space Daleview Mobile Home Estates, 104-space Santa Fe Mobile Home Park, 76-space El Rovia Trailer Village and 60-space Capri Gardens Mobile Home Community.

10% Rent Break

Brookside’s latest initiative calls for landlords to provide a 10% rent break to mobile home park residents who receive some kind of government assistance. A limit of 10% of a park’s tenants could receive the subsidy, and landlords would not have to provide the subsidy if they could prove a “financial hardship.”

Recipients, who can receive only Social Security support under the proposal, would be picked by management.

The June referendum campaign was one of the most contentious elections in El Monte history.

Responding to complaints from residents, the district attorney’s office began investigating possible improprieties in the petition process.

The residents charged that some of the petition circulators hired by opponents were not El Monte residents, a violation of the Elections Code. The investigation has not been completed but will not affect the outcome of the June election.

In the campaign, Brookside outspent the residents by a margin of 5 to 1, according to campaign disclosure statements through June.

A committee formed by Brookside’s owners spent about $128,000, while Homeowners for Yes on 2216 spent $23,000. Except for a $5,000 contribution from the Western Mobilehome Assn., a Sacramento mobile home park lobby, all of the opposition’s money came from Brookside owners Tatum and Kaplan.

Another Victory

On Tuesday, mobile home residents, most of them retirees and senior citizens, embraced after the council delayed a citywide vote until 1990, some saying they had beaten the park owners for a second time.

“We are happy that they did what was right,” said Donald E. Smith, one of the leaders of Homeowners for Yes on 2216. “Now, we’d like to see the ordinance work.”

The rent ordinance has not been used because its implementation was delayed until the June vote. Brookside residents want to challenge two rent increases that came in March and June. Tuesday night, the council named two owner representatives to the commission.

‘Playing Games’

Englander, who said the “City Council is just playing games,” said the initiative backers have a number of options. He said they could seek a court writ to compel the city to put the issue on the November ballot.

“People have said ‘Put it on the ballot,’ ” he said. “Put it on the ballot, guys.”

Englander said a second possibility would be another petition drive aimed at getting signatures from 15% of the registered voters. He said a special election, which would not be consolidated with other municipal elections, could be more expensive than the estimated $20,000 it would have cost the city to place the latest measure on the November ballot.