Mobile Home Rent Increases Unfair

* In your June 7 story, “Mobile Home Owner Rent Plan Supported,” the three words “annual rent increases” leaped out from the text at me.

Where is it cast in concrete that park owners are automatically entitled to annual increases? Is this mandated in the rent control ordinance? If not by the ordinance, then by what law? What other enterprise enjoys this luxury of government-enforced annual increases in its revenue?

The whole philosophy underlying this principle is manifestly unfair. It is closely allied to “taxation without representation”--that event that triggered the dumping of a lot of tea in Boston Harbor, followed by the emancipation of our citizens from British rule.

Residents of the Ventura Marina Mobile Home Park bear an additional burden to this annual increase that they share with other city parks. This is brought about by their unique situation because of the lease arrangement between the Ventura Port District (the landowner) and Peterson Trust of Whittier (the leaseholder). This lease requires the holder to pay 17% of gross revenues to the Port District. Despite the fact that two previous lease owners managed to operate under the 17% requirement, the current leaseholder made repeated attempts to obtain a special rental increase to offset it. When proved unsuccessful, this trust elected to sue the city of Ventura.

The City Council majority, in its infinite wisdom, caved in and agreed to a “settlement.” This infamous agreement--which in essence transferred the 17% to the leaseholder--was paid not by the city but by, you guessed it, the residents of the park.

Since the Ventura City Council has once previously abrogated its responsibility to defend its own ordinance, and thereby protect the 500 residents of the Ventura Marina Mobile Home Park, how can these same residents have confidence that present and future Ventura city councils can be relied on to provide such protection under the new or revised rent control ordinance?

ROBERT M. HERRON

Ventura