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As expected, Fortuna’s city council passed a moratorium freezing increases on lot rents in mobile home parks in the city at a special meeting last night.

“We won,” said Hilary Mosher, a spokesperson for the Save Our Seniors group behind the push for the rent-stabilization ordinance (RSO) in a phone call with the Outpost. “We are ecstatic. Absolutely ecstatic. It’s historic.”

The moratorium stops park owners from raising rents until April 30, unless an RSO is adopted before then. 

The moratorium passed over the objections of the park owners, whose attorney sent a letter to the city council last week that hinted they weren’t above taking the city to court if the moratorium was enacted. 

The next steps for the council and staff will be to design an RSO for the city; Mosher said she’d drawn one up based on Humboldt County’s RSO from 2016, which anchors rent increases to the Consumer Price Index Bay Area region and to infrastructure improvements. 

Mosher said she and the other members of the SOS were grateful to the city council for hearing them out and working with them. 

“We’re calling them our heroes, right here, right now,” Mosher said. “The city council and the city staff are our heroes.”