Anaheim Rejects Mobile Home Rent Control

Voters said no to rent control in mobile home parks but yes to pay raises for City Council members in Tuesday’s special election.

With all the votes counted, a plan providing for the direct election of the mayor was overwhelmingly approved, but voters did not see fit to tax themselves for more police and fire protection.

Low turnout--14.2% of the city’s registered voters--did not help mobile home park residents in their fight against a well-financed group of civic and business leaders.

“I think this is a very good trend for us,” said Rick Vaughn, chairman of Anaheim Homeowners and Taxpayers Against Rent Control. “We feel very happy.”

Throughout the night, Vaughn and other group members kept tabs on the vote tallies at a pizza and beer party inside their headquarters at a local mobile home supply store.

Mayor Fred Hunter, who backed Measure A, the rent control initiative, said the result could cause park residents on fixed incomes to move from the city.

“Some mobile home parks have been gouging their residents for years,” Hunter said from his home. “No one has ever said no to them.”

Mobile home park owners, fearful that Anaheim’s rent control initiative could set a precedent throughout the county, raised more than $100,000 to fight the measure.

Rent control proponents, largely made up of angry tenants of trailer parks who claim that rent increases have been unfair, raised about $4,000.

Battling the interests of the city’s developer-dominated business community, park residents had been waging a grass-roots campaign for a rent control ordinance since 1987, when a bid to place one on the ballot was declared invalid because of wording on the petitions used to collect signatures.

Members of the movement, organized by the Anaheim Political Action Committee, have accused owners of raising rents to drive off tenants so the land can be sold to developers.

Passage of the measure would have made Anaheim only the second city in Orange County--along with San Juan Capistrano--to approve a rent control ordinance for mobile home parks. Under terms of the measure proposed Tuesday, mobile home park rents would have been rolled back to 1988 levels and limits on annual rent increases would have been held to the annual inflation rate, not to exceed 8%.

Citing a need for more police officers, firefighters and public safety equipment, Hunter and the Police Department had lobbied heavily for Measure D, even though the initiative did not specify how much of a tax increase would be needed to pay for emergency services.

Measure C, which will increase monthly salaries for City Council members to the state maximum of $1,000 each, drew little pre-election attention. City Council members were receiving $400 per month and the mayor $800 per month.

Measure B, which will open the candidacy for mayor to any registered voter in the city, was lauded as a chance to bring new blood to city politics. The measure will also create a separate council seat for the mayor so a candidate may not simultaneously run for mayor and a City Council seat.

Also included in the measure was a provision to increase the mayor’s term from two years to four years.

In Orange, residents of Cumberland Road, a 20-acre unincorporated island in the city’s semi-rural north end, voted to annex to the city in a move that will provide long-awaited sewer service to 62 homes.

Ballots, which were mailed to 140 registered voters on Cumberland Road last week, were tallied by city officials Tuesday night.

The vote ends a three-year struggle for annexation proponents who have wanted to improve the neighborhood’s sewer system. Currently, Cumberland Road residents use a series of septic tanks and cesspools, which they say pose a health hazard.

Times correspondent Mary Helen Berg contributed to this report.

ELECTION RETURNS

Anaheim

A--Mobile Home Rent Control

100% Precincts Reporting: Votes (%) Yes: 5,631 (41.5) No: 7,949 (58.5)

B--Direct Election of Mayor Yes: 9,652 (72.0) No: 3,760 (28.0)

C--City Council Salary Limit Yes: 8,101 (60.6) No: 5,269 (39.4)

D--Financing of New Police and Paramedic Services (advisory vote only) Yes: 4,788 (35.7) No: 8,614 (64.3)

Orange Cumberland Road Annexation 100% Precincts Reporting: Votes (%) Yes: 56 (56.6) No: 43 (43.4)

Elected candidates and winning side of measures are in bold type.