OXNARD : Mobile Home Rent Initiative Opposed

More than a dozen mobile home park residents persuaded the Oxnard City Council to adopt a resolution opposing an initiative that would override local rent-control laws on mobile homes.

“There’s a lot of people who feel this initiative is being misrepresented,” Mayor Manuel M. Lopez said Tuesday. “Even though it is being touted as assistance for mobile home residents, it would not do that.”

The initiative, being circulated by park owners around the state as the “Mobilehome Fairness and Rental Assistance Act,” would limit rent subsidies to 10% of the residents and do away with local mobile home rent-control laws.

Alice-Jean Davis, president of the regional chapter of the Golden State Mobilehome Owners League, told the council Tuesday that signature-gatherers at a local shopping center last weekend were lying to potential signers.

“They were indeed saying that (the petition) was for 10% off rents,” Davis said in seeking council support for the resolution.

Davis, whose region covers San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, said several other cities have adopted similar resolutions, including Thousand Oaks and Arroyo Grande.

Petition supporters said they have about 100,000 of the signatures needed to qualify the measure for the fall ballot.

They have until late June to submit about 385,000 valid signatures.

There are more than 10,000 mobile homes in Ventura County.