Mobile Home Dweller’s Case for Rent Control

We the residents of Pomona’s mobile home parks share Mayor Donna Smith’s belief--voiced during the Dec. 2 council meeting--that citizens of our country should be able to conduct their business free from unreasonable governmental regulation (Times, Dec. 5.) We believe that business should be regulated by the consumer and by the market in which the business functions.

Nevertheless, at certain times and in certain instances, we believe it is appropriate for the government to regulate the free enterprise system. The sales of prescription medicines, of liquor, of automobiles and of sundry other products and services are to some extent regulated by our government. At times, the purpose of this regulation is to protect the consumer.

Mayor Smith recently recognized the necessity of governmental regulation of the marketplace for the good of the consumer: Her recent, well-publicized campaign against “smut peddlers” at the city’s newspaper racks was a call for regulation of the marketplace.

Yet the consumers (she) sought to protect have an advantage that mobile home dwellers lack: the right to choose. We are a captive market. We ask Mayor Smith and council members (Ken) West, (Paula) Lantz and (Boyd) Bredenkamp not to regulate the marketplace, but to oppose a monopoly of that marketplace by the owners of Pomona’s mobile home parks. We ask you to support rent control.

LELAND EDWARD STONE

Pomona