Santa Monica Slow-Growth Petitions Rejected by Judge

A slow-growth initiative for Santa Monica was killed Wednesday when a Superior Court judge upheld the city attorney’s decision to reject petitions circulated in support of the measure.

Disappointed sponsors of the initiative, who had asked the court to force the city to accept the petitions, said they now plan to put forth candidates who support slow growth in November’s City Council election.

“The slow-growth movement is by no means dead,” said Sharon Gilpin, a representative of Santa Monica Tomorrow, the ad hoc group that worked nearly a year to draft the initiative. About 7,000 signatures--1,500 more than necessary to qualify the measure for the November ballot--had been collected.

“The goals of the initiative are still valid,” Gilpin said, adding there was neither time nor money to appeal Wednesday’s court decision. “The quality of life in Santa Monica is still eroding.”

Judge David M. Rothman, in an hour-long hearing, denied Santa Monica Tomorrow’s request for a court order to force the city to accept the petitions.

He concurred with a ruling by the Santa Monica city attorney that the petitions supporting the measure were invalid because they failed to contain a “notice of intent to circulate” the initiative petitions and the names of the measure’s sponsors.

The state Election Code, which was revised last year, requires petitions to include those elements. However, attorneys for Santa Monica Tomorrow argued that the code is confusing and makes it so difficult for initiative sponsors that the right to self-govern, embodied by the initiative process, is thwarted.

“The real issue is how the average citizen would construe the statute,” attorney Josephine Powe said. “The precious right . . . the right to self-govern . . . should not be unduly restricted. We believe it has been.”

“You Figure Go It Out”

She said the city gave Santa Monica Tomorrow members instructions that contained nine pages of single-spaced, hard-to-understand information on getting an initiative on the ballot.

“In effect, the city said, here, you go figure it out,” she said.

But Rothman was not swayed. “It’s clear (that) the statute provision is there,” he said. “For whatever arbitrary and silly reason . . . it’s there. What right does a court, or a city attorney for that matter, have to ignore it?”

Powe said the court has a duty to protect the citizens’ right to self-govern. She added that Santa Monica’s city attorney has been inconsistent with rulings on what initiative petitions must contain, furthering the confusion.

Rothman repeated that the court had to side with the city because allowing any rule to be circumvented would be the “essence of judicial overreaching.”

“Just because a city may administer a law in a haphazard way . . . doesn’t mean a citizen can ignore the law,” he said.

Protect Signers

“The laws that govern what must be on a petition are not for the purpose of making it easier or more difficult to circulate a petition. . . . The purpose is not to protect the proponents (of an initiative) but to protect the people being asked to sign,” Rothman said.

Powe said that even though the petitions did not include the sponsors’ names, it was clear who the sponsors were. People circulating the petitions wore buttons that identified them as members of Santa Monica Tomorrow and distributed separate flyers, she said.

Deputy City Atty. Joseph Lawrence, who presented Santa Monica’s case, said the city followed the letter of the law in disqualifying the petitions.

City Atty. Robert M. Myers rejected the petitions on June 13, basing his decision on a 1987 Court of Appeal case from San Francisco. He ruled in response to a challenge to the petitions by Christopher M. Harding, a Santa Monica lawyer.

Harding, who represents several developers and homeowners, has attacked the slow-growth initiative as a “no-growth” plan that would drastically and unreasonably curtail construction in the city.

Sought Intervention

The Chamber of Commerce sided with the city in Wednesday’s Superior Court hearing and asked to be allowed to intervene, which would have given it the right to appeal if the judge had ruled against the city.

Rothman determined the chamber’s interest was more political than legal, and denied the request. However, he allowed attorney Stephen Jones, representing the chamber, to present arguments.

Wednesday’s court action puts an end to a flurry of initiative attempts in Santa Monica.

Two other initiatives, which would have toughened the city’s rent-control law and limited campaign contributions, were similarly crushed when Myers determined those petitions were invalid.

Another slow-growth initiative, drafted by a splinter group of Santa Monica Tomorrow, never stood a chance. Numerous revisions delayed any circulating of petitions until it was too late to meet the deadline for the November ballot.