LAGUNA BEACH : Voters to Decide Fate of Rent Control

The City Council on Tuesday refused to rescind a rent control ordinance for mobile home parks, placing the fate of the controversial new law in the hands of voters.

The council approved the ordinance last month, but was forced to reconsider its action because more than 1,500 residents signed petitions demanding the law be rescinded or put to a vote.

The council voted 4 to 1 to schedule a special election for Nov. 19, with Councilwoman Martha Collison opposing the action. Mayor Neil G. Fitzpatrick, who voted against the measure when it was approved last month, said Tuesday that it should be placed before voters as soon as possible.

“I’m voting for the motion because this is a major emotional tug at the city and we ought to get it over” with, Fitzpatrick told the audience of about 150 that jammed the council chambers.

The drive to overturn the rent-control ordinance has been fueled by a group called the Laguna Beach Homeowners and Taxpayers Committee, which includes owners of several mobile home parks in the city.

According to a campaign statement received Tuesday by the Laguna Beach city clerk’s office, the committee spent $58,392 on its public relations and signature-collecting efforts in support of a referendum. Much of the money was spent for the services of two consulting firms and on a poll to gauge public sentiment in the city regarding rent control.

“We are intent upon winning and we will spend whatever it takes to win,” Tom Conner, co-chairman of the committee, said of the cost of the campaign. He said his group must outspend the competition to prevail against the council majority.

By contrast, the Laguna Beach Mobile Home Political Action Committee, representing mobile home tenants, spent just $2,669 in opposing a referendum on the rent-control issue, according to its campaign statement.

K.P. Rice, president of Treasure Island Residents-Owners Assn. Inc., said he is not worried about the committee being outspent by more than $50,000.

“The beauty of it is, that in Laguna money can’t buy votes,” Rice said.

The voters must now decide whether to approve or reject the new law, which would roll back rents at the city’s three mobile home parks to 1989 levels and hold annual increases to either a 7% raise over the current rent or 75% of the annual consumer price index increase, whichever is less.