LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Lakeport City Council will see Lakeport's top cop receive one of the state's highest professional law enforcement certifications, with the council also set to discuss a report on options regarding a ballot initiative to place the city's senior mobile home parks under rent control.
The council meeting, which also is a joint meeting of the Lakeport Redevelopment Successor Agency and the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District, will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
During public presentations, Karen Lozito, senior law enforcement consultant with the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), will present the POST Executive Certificate to Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.
The POST Executive Certificate, according to the organization's Web site, is awarded “to currently employed full-time peace officers of a POST-participating agency who possess an Advanced Certificate, have earned a minimum of sixty semester units at an accredited college, served for a period of two years as the department head and who have completed the Executive Development Course.”
Rasmussen became Lakeport's 24th police chief in June 2011.
In council business, interim City Attorney David Ruderman will present a report that the council had directed last month be prepared with regard to the senior mobile home rent control initiative that received enough signatures to go on the November 2014 ballot.
The initiative, if passed, would define senior parks as those where at least 80 percent of the homes have at least one person age 65 or older. In addition, it would roll back rents to those in place on Jan. 1, 2012, and require that rent increases be tied to rises in Social Security benefits.
A signature gathering effort for a similar initiative in the county jurisdiction currently is under way.
With the report now complete, the council can elect to place the initiative on the ballot or, potentially, could take action to block putting it before the city's residents, according to the written report submitted by Ruderman and Matthew T. Summers, assistant interim city attorney.
At the Aug. 20 council meeting park owners and their supporters indicated they may take legal action to block the initiative, which they argue is unconstitutional, a concern noted in the report from Ruderman and Summers.
“We conclude that the initiative is likely to be litigated if adopted and that a court will likely invalidate the initiative because it: (1) constitutes a regulatory taking; and (2) is preempted by state law. The City’s mobile home park owners have expressed an interest in litigating if the initiative is adopted,” the attorneys wrote.
Ruderman and Summers suggested the council has four options: adopt the initiative as an ordinance; place it on the next regularly-scheduled general election ballot in November 2014; seek declaratory and injunctive relief in court “on the basis that the initiative is plainly illegal,” under legal theory established in the 2008 court case, Widders v. Furchtenicht; or refuse to place the initiative on the ballot and defend the city’s refusal if the proponent brings a lawsuit seeking to force the city to enact the initiative or place it on the ballot.
“The Council must take one of these actions within 10 days of receipt of this report,” the attorneys reported. “Although we conclude the initiative suffers from several legal defects and is likely to be struck down if challenged, it is the City Council’s decision on how to proceed.”
Also on Tuesday, Finance Director Dan Buffalo will take to the council a resolution authorizing the execution and delivery of a loan agreement to refinance outstanding side fund obligations of the city to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, and direct the filing of a judicial validation action.
In other news, Planning Services Manager Andrew Britton will take to the council an application from the mobile catering business Hey … Hot Dog!, which is seeking a time limit waiver in order to remain at one location beyond the recently established two-hour time limit.
On the consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted on one vote – are ordinances; the warrant register for Aug. 21 and Sept. 6; minutes of the Sept. 3 meeting; the August building permit reports; adoption of a revised conflict of interest policy for the city; approval of revisions to the agreement for services with City Manager Margaret Silveira, which city staff said contained clerical errors; and approval of the redevelopment successor agency recognized obligation payment schedule.
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