Opponents of Slow-Growth Initiative Are Kept at Bay, for Now

Opponents of a managed-growth initiative failed Friday in San Diego County Superior Court to receive a temporary restraining order they had sought as the first step in their attempt to block the measure from qualifying for next June’s ballot.

In the first procedural skirmish in a budding legal battle, attorneys for Prevent Los Angelization Now!, or PLAN, temporarily held off an effort by a coalition of real estate consultants and economists to invalidate nearly 83,000 signatures gathered by PLAN in support of its proposed Planned Growth and Taxpayer Relief Initiative.

Without addressing the merits of the case, Judge James Milliken scheduled an Aug. 16 hearing on the real estate group’s lawsuit, which charges that PLAN violated a new state law by not specifying on its petitions that the signatures were being solicited by both paid circulators and volunteers.

Both PLAN leaders and city election officials argue that, because San Diego has its own charter and election code, it is not bound by the new state law in the case of the proposed initiative.

“This is pure and simple harassment,” PLAN chairman Peter Navarro said after the closed hearing, conducted in Milliken’s chambers. “It’s a frivolous lawsuit and a waste of taxpayers’ money to have to deal with it.”

Invalidation of the signatures on PLAN’s petitions would be a serious psychological and financial blow to the group, which mounted a three-month, $122,000-drive to gather the 83,000 names at issue in the court case.

Although the initiative’s opponents failed to secure a temporary restraining order, attorney Kendall Squires, who represented Taxpayers for Civic Responsibility, said he was “quite happy” with the Aug. 16 hearing date since it will permit a ruling before the city clerk’s office certifies the signatures.

The real estate group’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday, seeks to force PLAN to circulate new petitions that would include the disclaimer about paid signature gatherers and to prevent City Clerk Charles Abdelnour’s office from receiving and certifying the petitions already collected.

Upon learning that the lawsuit had been filed, PLAN immediately turned in its signature petitions to the clerk’s office Wednesday, thereby beginning the process by which the initiative could end up on the citywide ballot next June.

To qualify for the ballot, at least 56,785 signatures on the petitions must be valid, city elections officer Mike Haas said.

Despite the lawsuit, verification of the signatures has already begun, Haas said Friday. By law, that process must be completed within 30 days. Then, if sufficient signatures are valid, the City Council has the option of placing it on next June’s ballot or simply enacting the ordinance, thereby precluding an election.

PLAN officials argue that the proposed initiative would help ensure that builders pay their fair share of additional public services necessitated by new development. Critics, however, contend that it would virtually halt growth, dramatically increasing housing costs.

“The PLAN initiative is so extreme it would make the purchase of a home impossible for anyone whose annual income was less than $100,000,” said Fred Pierce, a Price Waterhouse economist and chairman of Taxpayers for Civic Responsibility.

In a related development Friday, San Diegans for Managed Growth notified the city clerk’s office that it was officially withdrawing petitions for another proposed ballot measure dealing with growth, the Parks and Wildlife Protection Initiative, from circulation.

Efforts to gather signatures for that initiative, aimed at overturning a City Council decision to extend Jackson Drive through Mission Trails Regional Park and block development on San Diego’s northern fringe, had been flagging in recent months, largely because of the group’s lack of money to hire paid circulators.

Although the lawsuit before Milliken is aimed primarily at the PLAN initiative, it also accuses San Diegans for Managed Growth of violating the same state law governing the information to be printed on signature petitions. The group’s withdrawal of its initiative petitions, however, makes that question moot.