LAGUNA BEACH : Rent Limit Vote Battle Costs Soar

Opponents of a mobile home park rent control law are waging the most costly campaign in the city’s history and have outspent their competitors by almost 5 to 1.

The battle is being waged over Measure A, which will be the only item on the ballot in a special election Tuesday in Laguna Beach. Voters will determine whether rents should be controlled at three mobile home parks.

Opponents of rent control have spent $160,548, while supporters have spent $32,723.

Chris Crotty, campaign manager for the group favoring Measure A, said he thinks community involvement, not campaign spending, will make the difference to voters.

“It makes us feel like we’re in a David-and-Goliath situation,” Crotty said. “But we think the neighborhood support is the stones we can throw at the Goliath, and we think we’ll knock them down with those stones.”

Until now, the most expensive election battle in the city’s 64-year history had been last fall’s “Save the Canyon” campaign, which successfully urged voters to tax themselves to buy Laguna Canyon land that was targeted for development, according to City Clerk Verna Rollinger. That campaign cost about $125,000, she said.

Thomas Conner, campaign manager for the group opposing Measure A, called the group’s members underdogs because proponents had the support of both mobile home park tenants and most City Council members before the campaign even began.

“We had to move very quickly,” Conner said. “One of the ways you can right the playing field is by spending some money.”

Last summer, the City Council voted 3 to 2 to approve an ordinance that would roll back mobile home park space rents to 1989 levels and hold annual increases to either 7% over the current level or 75% of the annual increase in the consumer price index, whichever is less.

The law did not go into effect, however, because opponents quickly mobilized, gathering more than 1,500 signatures from residents who demanded the law be rescinded or put to a vote. The council voted 4 to 1 to call a special election.

Last week, the chairman of Laguna Residents for Neighborhood Preservation, Yes on A filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission accusing the opponents of using a name that deceives voters, Crotty said.

The name in question is Laguna Beach Homeowners and Taxpayers Committee--No on Measure A, Sponsored by Homeowners, Taxpayers, Community Leaders, Concerned Citizens and the Mobile Home Park Industry.

Crotty said the name is misleading because it does not reflect the fact that the campaign to defeat Measure A is being fueled mostly by the mobile home park industry and development interests. Conner, however, said the name appropriately reflects the variety of people who reject Measure A, including many campaign volunteers.

“We’re calling ourselves exactly what we are,” Conner said Wednesday, “and we think the name is exactly right.”

Conner said Measure A proponents are simply trying to divert attention from the controversial issue at hand.

“I think it’s just another case of the pro-rent control people wanting to talk about everything but rent control,” he said.