Sitting outside grocery stores and going door to door has paid off for mobile home residents collecting signatures to get a mobile home initiative on the November ballot.

On Tues., July 8 the Thousand Oaks City Council is scheduled to get an impact report that includes legal analysis of Erickson's Law, named after the late homeowners association president of Conejo Mobile Home Park, Richard Erickson, who worked tirelessly to try to protect the residents of that park after the owner announced he would close it.

The measure would require an owner who closes a mobile home park in the city to make relocation payments to tenants.

The initiative, sponsored by Thousand Oaks Mobile Homeowners Action Coalition, would also makes it possible to change the mobile home park land-use designation to "mobile home exclusive," making its only use a mobile home park. A group of residents from Thousand Oaks' nine mobile home parks comprises TOMHAC.

Those residents- who include seniors, veterans, disabled and low-income families- sat at tables outside of businesses all over the city collecting signatures.

On June 10 the Thousand Oaks City Council received certification from the city clerk that enough valid signatures- more than 11,000- were collected to bring a vote to the people. To qualify for the ballot, 7,150 verified signatures are needed.

The group organized when the council changed the landuse designation for Conejo Mobile Home Park on Newbury Road to highdensity residential despite the pleas of many of the mobile home park residents not to do so.

Mobile home residents are now asking the council to adopt the initiative on July 8 so that it doesn't have to go on the ballot.

At the June 10 council meeting, Councilmember Andy Fox said he would be the first to move to make the initiative into law if it could be legally defended. Fox was the council member chosen by fellow members to mediate between Conejo Mobile Home Park residents and the owner.

During the public comment time at the June 24 City Council meeting, former Planning Commissioner Janet Wall asked that Councilmember Claudia Bill-de la Peña be the first to make the motion instead because of what she described as Bill-de la Peña's past support of the mobile home park residents.

"If the council chooses to adopt Erickson's Law, we would be most honored if Councilmember de la Peña would be the first to make the motion," Wall said.