OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — The California-based owner of a sprawling mobile home park in Old Orchard Beach is pursuing an aggressive campaign to defeat a proposed rent cap on the town ballot this November.
Residents of Old Orchard Village and Atlantic Village started a citizen's petition this year, after learning that their mobile home parks were up for sale.
The measure, if passed by voters, would ensure lot rents for mobile home park residents could only increase up to 5% yearly, except under special circumstances.
"We’re a grassroots effort," Val Philbrick, who introduced the ordinance and lives at Old Orchard Park, said Wednesday.
The real estate firm Follett USA, headquartered in Sacramento, secured ownership of the park this summer. Now, the company’s leaders are back in town, lobbying against the ballot question.
On Tuesday, they held a meeting at a restaurant in Old Orchard Beach, urging voters to reject the rent cap for financial reasons. In a letter to residents beforehand, Follett's president, Erik Rollain, warns of an “added administration cost” from the town of as much as $25 per month per tenant if the ballot question passes.
A town official says this number—announced by Town Manager Diana Asanza at an earlier public hearing—is a loose estimate and that “nothing has been set in stone from the town.”
Still, Rollain insists “there’s going to be a cost associated with it and we don’t know exactly what that is.”
Philbrick doesn’t buy it.
“Why is he so concerned about the administrative fee? He’s not going to have to pay for it,” she said.
Rollain admits his reasons for pushing against the rent cap include concern for the company’s finances.
“The ordinance is going to end up costing me, alright?” he said.
In addition to meetings and letters, Follett USA has set up a ballot question committee called the Committee to Protect Old Orchard Beach Affordable Housing. The group, whose only campaign contributions are from Follett USA—according to campaign finance reports filed with the Maine Ethics Commission—has scattered signs across Old Orchard beach reading: “No on 1 Don’t Tax Affordable Housing.”
The town official who spoke to NEWS CENTER Maine said this wording is “misleading” and that the measure would not be a tax.
To Philbrick, this is just more evidence of the company’s ill-intent.
“Not only is it misrepresentation, it's dishonest,” she said Wednesday.
When pressed about the statements made on the sign, Rollain responded, “The sign? We’re just saying we’re not in favor of it.”
Philbrick believes Rollain is using intimidation to defeat the ballot initiative she helped shape.
“He’s really trying to, I feel, use his money and his wealth and his power to mislead the citizens of these parks and confuse them, and make them feel afraid,” she expressed.