SANTA PAULA : Mobile Home Issue Going Solo on Ballot

The Santa Paula City Council decided Monday that a citizens’ initiative to ban rent increases in the city’s mobile home parks when a coach is sold will stand alone on the ballot in November.

After approving the measure for the Nov. 3 ballot, the council rejected a proposal to also place the city’s existing rent control ordinance on the ballot in a winner-take-all contest.

The proposal to put two propositions before the voters, submitted by City Administrator Arnold Dowdy, was opposed by mobile home residents who said it would confuse voters.

“Adopting the current ordinance for the ballot is a smoke screen and a deliberate measure to confuse the voters in Santa Paula,” said Helen Currier, president of United Mobile Home Owners Assn. of Santa Paula, before the council vote. Her group drafted and circulated the ballot initiative.

While the current law and the initiative limit most annual rent increases to three-fourths of the year’s Consumer Price Index, the initiative would eliminate the 25% increase a park owner may now charge a new tenant when a coach changes hands.

The initiative would also restrict park owners from passing on the costs of certain maintenance projects to their tenants.

During preliminary remarks, Councilwoman Margaret A. Ely voiced qualified support for the city’s ordinance.

“My understanding is our rent control law is not very good--we all know that--but it has stood up in court.”

But when the time came for the council to approve placing the existing ordinance on the ballot, the proposal died because no council member moved for its adoption.

“There are adequate provisions for seeing what people want during the election,” without the need for a rival measure on the ballot, said City Councilman Les H. Maland.

In advocating the ballot showdown, Dowdy said the citizens initiative, if passed, would almost certainly force the city to face expensive litigation to defend it.