Teacher Files Suit to Speed Up the Lottery

Claiming that public education in California will soon be losing nearly $1.4 million a day because of delays in setting up the state lottery, a high school teacher filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court Tuesday to force the state Lottery Commission to begin selling tickets on Thursday or explain to a judge why the deadline set by Proposition 37 is not being met.

The taxpayers’ class-action suit, filed by Nancy Avoy, a substitute teacher in the San Jose area, also seeks a court order requiring Gov. George Deukmejian to immediately appoint a state lottery director or explain to a judge why he failed to meet the Dec. 6 deadline set by the voter-approved initiative for that appointment.

San Jose attorney Samuel J. Cohen, who prepared the suit, said implementation of the lottery should be put under the court’s jurisdiction because state officials are failing to meet deadlines set by the lottery law.

“The court should take jurisdiction,” he said in a telephone interview, “and set a date certain as to the issuance of these lottery tickets.”

Suit Claims Loss

The suit maintains that public education in California, which is to receive 50% of gross lottery sales under the initiative, will lose $1.37 million a day due to the failure of state officials to set up the lottery. The figure is based on an estimate that the lottery will gross $1 billion per year.

The state attorney general’s office is expected to represent the Lottery Commission and the governor when a hearing on the suit is set in San Francisco Superior Court.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Eugene Hill said in a telephone interview that Proposition 37 does not call for penalties or for removing jurisdiction of the lottery from the commission or the governor if the timetable set in the initiative is not kept.

“Given the importance of the matter,” he said, “both the commission and the governor are acting properly.”

Timetable Set

The lottery initiative, approved by 58% of the voters last Nov. 6, required that the governor appoint a five-member Lottery Commission and a lottery director by Dec. 6 and that the lottery be in operation by March 21.

Deukmejian appointed members of the Lottery Commission on Jan. 29 but has not yet named a director. Thursday marks the deadline for the beginning of ticket sales, but no machinery for sales has yet been set up. Lottery Commission Chairman Howard Varner will estimate only that tickets will be sold “before the end of the year.”

Avoy, an English teacher and special education instructor at Blackford High School in Campbell, said she filed the suit out of frustration.

“It’s really annoying,” she said. “The voters said this is when it’s supposed to take place. He (Deukmejian) has dragged his feet. . . . I just worked myself into a frenzy about it.”

Avoy, 46, of Los Gatos has one child in elementary school and four in college in California.

Loss ‘Irretrievable’

The money lost to public education because of failure to set up the lottery, she argued, is “irretrievable.”

Avoy said she asked attorney Cohen, a longtime family friend, whether any action could be taken to force state officials to implement the lottery in accordance with the state initiative.

“Sam said apparently the only one . . . is a class-action suit,” Avoy recalled, “and I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”

“Because respondent Gov. Deukmejian has failed to appoint a director of the Lottery Commission,” argues Avoy’s petition for a writ of mandate, “the Lottery Commission is without the services of the individual who . . . is vested with the responsibility for managing the affairs of the commission . . . .

Indefinite Delay

“As a result, petitioner . . . believes that the operation of the lottery will be delayed for an indefinite time.”

The state attorney general’s office is now conducting a background check on a potential Deukmejian choice for lottery director, but the candidate’s identity has not been disclosed and it is not known how long the background investigation will take.