SANDRA COLE -- Community Commentary

I would like to address the commentary by Don Williams (“Reporting

shows ‘mess’ Garofalo has made,” Aug. 31). He is, for sure, holding the

smoking gun. However, Williams is grossly misinformed if he thinks that

the mayor and his sidekick Ed Laird support rent control.

Obviously, Williams has not read Laird’s proposed initiative that

seeks an amendment to the city charter that would ban any form of rent

control in Huntington Beach. In other words, the mobile home park owners

want to control the ability of the city to pass its own laws . . . what’s

next? If this doesn’t violate the Constitution, I don’t know what does.

Exactly what do you know about mobile home communities? Have you ever

attended a Mobile Home Review Board meeting at City Hall? Do you think

that we pack up at night like gypsies and sneak away? Uninformed comments

always make me angry.

The mobile home owners of Huntington Beach have asked the City Council

to consider rent stabilization for mobile home parks only. Once a mobile

home is placed on its pad, less than 3% are ever moved. Why? Because it

costs between $10,000 and $15,000 to move a mobile home, and parks will

only accept them if they are less than 5 years old.

Now, if I lived in one of your rentals and you raised the rent every

year without fail, I could pack up, hire a van and move on to something I

could afford. If I lived in one of your rentals, I could call you if the

roof leaks and the plumbing fails and the driveway sinks . . . indeed if

the rental itself sinks (because the ground was not properly graded).

Not so in a mobile home. I am responsible for all of the above,

including the landscaping. Often, I am even told what kind of plants I

can have.

Most of us love living in mobile home communities because they offer a

feeling of a single detached home while giving a feeling of security.

Most of all, they are affordable.

While the park owner maintains the common area, it is not unusual for

him to pass on the cost of doing business to the mobile home owner. Did

you know that the law allows him to purchase electricity and gas at a

reduced rate and sell it to the mobile home owners at the same rate you

pay? He is supposed to use the difference on maintenance. [Some] parks in

Huntington Beach have not been ... upgraded in 30 years. Now that their

systems are failing, they want to pass on the cost of repairs to the

homeowner.

You can have air conditioning in your home because the Edison company

delivers 100 amps to your home and your rentals. I am not allowed to have

an air conditioner because the park owner can barely deliver 50 amps, and

yet I pay the same rate as you do. Is there something wrong with this

picture? The original infrastructure was built for single-wide mobile

homes, and now they are all double- and triple-wide.

Some space rents in Huntington Beach are as high at $900 per month,

with a minimum 6% increase every year. This outrageous greed is for a

60-foot-by-80-foot strip of dirt. Utilities are extra. House payments can

be anywhere from $300 to $700 a month, in addition to space rent. Every

$10 rent increase devalues the home by $1,000.

What choice does a widow trying to live on $1,000 a month from Social

Security have when her rent is $700 a month? She can walk away because

she can’t pay anymore. Mr. Park Owner waits the appropriate length of

time and applies to the court to take over the “abandoned” home. He fixes

it up and resells it, or moves it out and puts in a newer and bigger

model and raises the rent.

Finally, not one of the 17 park owners live in Huntington Beach. They

do not shop here, live here, work here, vote here or create jobs here.

They give nothing back to the community, while taking millions of dollars

in revenue out of Huntington Beach.

I could go on and substantiate all of it through court documents.

Garofalo and Laird work for the big money -- the ones who can

contribute financially to elections. Incidentally, this initiative Laird

has supposedly written is not new. The mobile home park owners tried a

similar statewide initiative (Proposition 199) a few years ago that was

soundly defeated.

You say that you have been good to your tenants, and they have been

good to you. I am glad to hear that you are a responsible landlord.

The mobile home park owners of Huntington Beach have made the park

owners very rich. Some of us have lived in these parks since they were

built, and the rent was $50 to $90 a month. We realize that costs have

increased over the years. We want them to make a profit so they will

maintain the parks.

We have an unusual situation where one group wants to maximize its

investment and another wants to preserve its investment. It would be rare

indeed for them to agree.

* SANDRA COLE is a member of the Huntington Beach Mobile Home Advisory

Board.