LAGUNA BEACH : Rent Control Foes Outspending Backers

With the vote on a controversial law that would stabilize rents in city mobile home parks just five weeks away, rent control opponents have poured $88,000 into what figures to be a fierce and bitter campaign.

The Laguna Beach Homeowners and Taxpayers Committee, a group formed specifically to campaign against a mobile home rent control law, has raised or spent more than five times the $15,685 spent by those who favor Measure A, according to the latest campaign statements filed with the city clerk’s office. The statements show how much money has been raised by both sides through Oct. 5.

“We clearly don’t have the kind of funds that they do to ‘buy’ an election,” said Darlene Aut, campaign manager for the Treasure Island Resident-Owners Assn. Inc., a group of mobile home owners who support the measure. “It is a very serious concern of ours that they are putting incredible amounts of funds in to defeat the council’s wishes.”

At issue is an ordinance the City Council approved in July that would roll back rents in the city’s three mobile home parks to 1989 levels and hold annual increases to either a 7% raise over the current rent or 75% of the annual consumer-price index increase, whichever is less.

In response to the council’s action, rent control opponents, including owners of mobile home parks, collected more than 1,500 signatures demanding that the law be rescinded or put to a vote. The council voted 4 to 1 to schedule a special election for Nov. 19.

A campaign statement released in August showed the Laguna Beach Homeowners and Taxpayers Committee had spent $58,392 on the petition drive and on public relations. The latest campaign statements show two additional contributions of $15,000 each.