Local News in Brief : Growth Initiative Killed

A slow-growth initiative for Santa Monica has been killed by a Superior Court judge’s ruling upholding 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.

But the city attorney ruled that the petitions supporting the measure were invalid because they failed to contain a “notice of intent to circulate” and the names of the measure’s sponsors.