The Lakeport City Council met on Tuesday, Aug. 20. The major item on the agenda was the rent control initiative, which has officially secured enough signatures to get on the ballot in November 2014.

This initiative was the result of the efforts of an all-volunteer group of seniors, “Save Our Seniors,” with the encouragement of the people of Lakeport.

I will not bore you with the details of the meeting, but I want to describe the significance of the meeting as I saw it: On the one hand, there was the power of the people, utilizing grass roots democracy, to protect our seniors. On the other, is the power and the money of the park owner’s association, threatening to challenge the legality of the initiative, and destroy the City of Lakeport with legal fees.

In the middle is the city council, wishing that somehow, the issue would go away.

The council, according to California Code, had three options: Adopt the initiative (in which case it becomes law in 10 days), send it to election (to appear on the ballot in November 2014), or send it back to staff for 30 days for a study of the effects of the passing of the initiative.

Prudently, the council opted to send the initiative back to staff for review.

Here is the problem: The council has the power to vote not to allow the initiative on the ballot, on the basis of the fact that the legality of the initiative is questionable. Then, it would require the Save Our Seniors Committee to take the city of Lakeport to court in order to get on the ballot.

I confess that I am not a lawyer, but, in authoring the initiative, I did “copy and paste” the items from the rent control ordinances of several municipalities in California that have withstood legal challenge.

The part that is new in this initiative is tying rent control to Social Security: the rent can’t be raised unless Social Security benefits go up, and only by that percentage. So, everyone wins. The owners get more when we get more.

Under current law, as the space rent increases, we tenants just get poorer. This notion of tying rent increases to Social Security is what is called in law, “a matter of first impression.” In other words, the court has never seen it before.

Now, Social Security is tied to “CPI chained,” an index put out by the United States Government. So, for a judge to rule against our initiative, he would have to assume that CPI chained was a fair index to use to determine Social Security benefits, but not to determine rents.

In other words, he would be ruling that it is fair for the elderly poor to be made poorer by the government. This could not stand.

The staff has 30 days to report back to council with recommendations.

We in Save Our Seniors have spent hundreds of hours speaking with the public and gathering signatures. We have worked hard to use the democratic process, and, after months of tabling, I can say we have the overwhelming support of the people of Lake County.

We ask only to let the people decide at the ballot box. We demand that the city council give us our chance; let the initiative go to ballot and let the people decide.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.