LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Lake County Superior Court judge on Friday ruled that two senior mobile home park rent control initiatives that had been set to go before voters in the county and in the city of Lakeport are unconstitutional and therefore must be removed from upcoming ballots.
Judge Richard Martin found that the initiatives were not consistent with state statutes and also lacked an administrative mechanism for a rent control board to which residents or owners could appeal on issues related to fair rents.
“Those two matters are lethal as to this case,” said Martin.
Martin also maintained that it would be overreaching his authority to make changes to the initiatives in order to place them on the ballots, a request made by Nelson Strasser, who spearheaded the initiative efforts.
The case, Smith et al. v. Chapman, et al., was filed in January by Kerry Smith, daughter of a county park owner, and the Lake County Mobilehome Park Owners Association, as Lake County News has reported.
The park owners had maintained that the initiatives had constitutional shortcomings and that they planned to take the matter to court.
Strasser spoke in defense of the two measures at length during the hour-long hearing, with attorney Brian Hildreth representing the park owners.
Martin would laud Strasser's written and verbal defense of the measures despite ruling against him.
County Counsel Anita Grant and interim Lakeport City Attorney David Ruderman also were present, but neither offered statements to the court during the hearing.
The county measure had been scheduled for the June 3 primary, while the city measure had been headed for the Nov. 3 election. Martin issued orders to remove both from the respective ballots.
It's unclear what Strasser and the “Save Our Seniors” group – a number of whose members were among the roughly two dozen people in the courtroom – will do next to pursue the issue.
Strasser indicated at the Friday hearing that he's not sure they can go back and do it all over again. “It took a tremendous amount of energy to do this.”
“We are absolutely thrilled by the judge's decision. It was the right one,” Doug Johnson, a regional representative of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, told Lake County News after the hearing.
Last year Johnson had warned the Lakeport City Council and the Board of Supervisors that the measures were constitutionally flawed.
He said the park owners worked with park residents and county officials to craft a long-term lease that they have offered for several years. “We do not support rent control,” he added.
Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira, who was in the audience for the hearing, said the city has had concerns about constitutional issues in the city's measure, and had informed Strasser of those concerns at the beginning of his effort.
Highlighting constitutional shortcomings
In presenting his arguments to the court, Hildreth noted, “We argue that there are three things on the face of these measures that make them clearly invalid.”
The first, and most critical, according to Hildreth, was that there was no opportunity for park owners to implement discretionary rental increases.
The second and third issues overlapped into areas of law preempted by the state Legislature. Hildreth said that the state civil code says that mobile home spaces constructed and initially available for rent after Jan. 1, 1990, are exempt from any rent control ordinance.
The city of Lakeport's initiative, he said, only exempts any spaces initially available since Jan. 1, 1991, which leaves those initially available from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 1990, subject to rent control, in opposition to state law.
In the third case, the initiatives include a requirement that mobile home park leases in excess of 12 months include a notice that they are exempt from rent control protections, with civil code requiring that those rent control exemptions are only offered if park owners provided a detailed notice and comply with requirements governing the lease's execution, according to Hildreth.
Hildreth, an elections lawyer, called Strasser's work “a respectable effort” but one with flaws. He said in his filings he almost laid out a road map for how to create a plausible rent control initiative.
Strasser argued that case law establishes that “nonmaterial errors” could be repaired by the court, so long as they don't change the intent of the initiatives.
“You could easily document my intent, and it's always been, we need to protect the seniors,” and the way to do that, Strasser added, is by associating rent control with increases in Social Security.
“The guiding principle is that the intent remains,” Strasser said.
Strasser questioned the fairness of the process to invalidate the initiatives after the “herculean effort” to gather 3,500 signatures. As such, he asked Martin to order the city and county to defend the measure, which Martin refused to do.
Martin explained his concerns about Strasser's request that he alter the measures to comply with the law. “I need to stay within the boundaries that are required of a judge.”
Martin said he was concerned with altering the initiatives, as they would no longer be what people signed the petitions to support.
“If I change it, then it's Judge Martin's view of what the initiative ought to be, instead of what the people want,” he said.
He considered the lack of a rent control board a “very serious defect,” and one he didn't think he had the legal authority to fix, whereas he might have been able to take on more minor issues.
Martin said he had spent three weeks reading up on this and similar legal cases. He added that he's in the same age bracket as those concerned about the senior mobile home park rent control issue.
Hildreth agreed with Martin that Strasser's proposed changes would significantly change the ordinance. “This is a prime example of something that should not be on the ballot.”
Strasser, in turn, invited Hildreth and the park owners to tell him how to protect seniors from being impoverished without tying rents to Social Security. He said most senior mobile home park residents are part of a captive audience, as their homes can't easily be moved.
He also asserted that the park owners would sue no matter what, as he said they have a “visceral response” to rent control. He said he had emailed all of the attorneys involved and asked to get together to work out a compromise.
“They don't want a compromise, your honor,” he said.
Martin said it was the court's function to look at both sides, and the rent control board that the initiatives lacked was a way of ensuring fairness to tenants and park owners. He said he couldn't rewrite the documents, adding, “It doesn't mean I don't believe in the cause.”
Martin said Strasser is to be admired for the work he put into the effort, but said it had to be done in a way that was not unconstitutional. He suggested there must be a city in the state that has imposed the kinds of protections Strasser is seeking, which would pass muster and could be used as a basis for a new effort.
If he sat down to rewrite the initiatives, Martin said he would be stepping over his legal boundaries, and he believed such action would be reversed by higher courts.
He also told Strasser that he believed public officials were aware of what he wanted, would pay attention to the issue if he pursued it and would work with him.
Strasser said that, based on his previous experience, he didn't feel that local public officials had been responsive, and that the avenue Martin suggested wasn't open to him and the initiative proponents.
“You've doomed us if you don't help us out here,” Strasser said.
“That's not my intent,” said Martin, pointing again to the issues with constitutionality.
Strasser said there was no solution that's good for everyone, which Martin said is true in most cases.
“I do think you have a good cause and I hope that you don't give up, but it has to be done right,” Martin said.
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