LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The initiative that proposes to institute rent control in senior mobile home parks in the unincorporated areas of Lake County has moved another step closer to getting onto the June 2014 ballot.
The group “Save Our Seniors” collected enough signatures to qualify its initiative to be placed before the county's voters next summer.
Save Our Seniors also has a similar initiative that will appear on the city of Lakeport's November 2014.
The county initiative defines a senior mobile home park as one where 80 percent of the homes have at least one person over age 55.
It also would roll back rents to Jan. 1, 2012; and require that rent hikes be based on the percent of Social Security benefit increases.
Save Our Seniors submitted the signatures they had begun collecting in the spring to Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley's office on Oct. 4, as Lake County News has reported.
According to a certificate of examination completed by Fridley, Save Our Seniors collected 3,636 signatures for the county initiative, with 2,523 found to be valid. The effort needed a minimum of 2,115 signatures.
Fridley has sent her report to the Board of Supervisors, which will discuss the initiative at its meeting next Tuesday, Nov. 5, at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St. in Lakeport.
It's scheduled to be discussed at 11:15 a.m. Seniors and other interested parties are invited to attend and give comments on the initiative.
According to Fridley's report, the board has three options – accepting the initiative, without changes, as an ordinance; order it be placed on the June 3, 2014, ballot; or order a report from county departments on the potential impacts of the initiative.
That report would be completed within about a month; once submitted to the board, the supervisors would have 10 days to accept the ordinance or order it go on the June 2014 ballot, Fridley reported.
The Lakeport City Council had city department heads complete that report for the city initiative. With the report in hand, the council at its Sept. 17 meeting voted to place the initiative on the next municipal ballot in November 2014.
Park owners and their representatives have warned that they are preparing to take legal action against the initiatives, which they say are unconstitutional.
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