Council Misses Deadline for Ballot Arguments

The Lawndale City Council missed the city clerk’s Wednesday deadline for filing ballot arguments on four city measures to be decided by voters in November.

Because they missed the cutoff date, council members will not be able to present their views on the measures, which they placed on the Nov. 7 ballot earlier this month.

On Aug. 3, the council voted unanimously to put on the ballot three measures designed to clear up confusion over the validity of the city’s General Plan. They approved, 4 to 1, a fourth measure, which would allow the city to accept large federal or state grants to finance public projects without voter approval. Councilman Harold E. Hofmann opposed that measure.

At Thursday’s council meeting, Councilwoman Carol Norman said she is disappointed that council members will not have an opportunity to write ballot arguments on their measures.

Thought Council Had Time

Norman said that because items relating to the measures were on Thursday’s agenda, she had assumed the council still had time to draft its arguments for the ballot. She said she went out of town for the weekend without opening a letter notifying her of the deadline.

In spite of Norman’s comments, City Clerk Neil K. Roth would not budge from the deadline. He said he had posted it at City Hall and sent notification letters to the homes of the five council members on Aug. 10 “as a courtesy.” “Everyone had an equal opportunity to respond,” he said during a break in Thursday’s meeting.

City Atty. David J. Aleshire acknowledged that setting the deadline is entirely up to Roth. It is “completely within the discretion of the city clerk,” he said.

Aleshire will write an impartial analysis of each of the measures, and opposition arguments have been filed against the measures, including one co-authored by Hofmann.

At the council meeting, developer Jonathan Stein objected loudly to Roth’s deadline. He said he heads a 488-member homeowner group that “had no idea the election deadline had come and gone. The election is not until November.”

‘Example of Arrogance’

Stein called Roth’s holding to the deadline “another example of the arrogance and insensitivity of city government” and said the council should order the city attorney to draft a resolution extending the deadline.

Nancy J. Marthens, however, said that she and other residents made it their business to find out when the deadline for the ballot statements were, and to meet it. “If you are interested in these things you can respond (on time),” she said.

And Hofmann commented that since deadlines were set, “we have to live with them.” Hofmann, acting as a private citizen, co-signed with four other residents the argument against the financing measure. He said he did not sign as a councilman because, under state law, this would have precluded other residents from submitting arguments on the same side.

Activists Marthens, Herman Weinstein, Virginia Rhodes and Steve Mino joined Hofmann in the argument against the financing measure. Marthens, Weinstein, Rhodes and Mino also opposed the three General Plan measures.

The financing measure would allow the city to take advantage of federal or other outside funding to build public facilities costing more than $1 million. A 1987 initiative, enacted by a 3-1 margin, requires the city to obtain voter approval for public projects costing more than $1 million. The proposed measure would allow the city to exceed that figure as long as the amount in excess of $1 million comes from outside sources.

Attempt to Resolve Confusion

The other three measures attempt to resolve confusion over Ordinance 82 and the city’s General Plan.

Ordinance 82, a successful 1963 initiative, required the city to obtain voter approval for the General Plan. The ordinance was deemed unconstitutional in a 1974 state attorney general’s opinion, so the council adopted the plan in 1976 without a citywide vote.

Last December, the attorney general’s office reviewed the case and found the 1974 opinion erroneous, throwing the legality of the city’s General Plan into question.

One of the measures on the ballot would repeal Ordinance 82; another would amend it to include major amendments to the General Plan, and a third asks voters to decide whether to approve the 1976 General Plan.