New Group Seeks to Keep Growth Issues Off Ballot

Seeking to keep two citizen initiatives off next June’s ballot in the city of San Diego, a newly formed coalition of real estate consultants and economists filed suit Wednesday alleging technical violations in the signature gathering process.

Taxpayers for Civic Responsibility claimed that Prevent Los Angelization Now! and San Diegans for Managed Growth have violated a new state law by failing to note on petitions for their respective ballot measures that both volunteers and paid circulators are soliciting signatures.

The lawsuit apparently prompted PLAN to immediately submit petitions Wednesday containing about 83,000 signatures in support of its Planned Growth and Taxpayer Relief Initiative to San Diego City Clerk Charles Abdelnour’s office. Submission of the petitions begins the process by which the measure ultimately could end up on the ballot.

Last week, PLAN announced that it had collected sufficient signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot, but would wait several weeks before submitting them so that the issue would not be considered by the City Council before its Sept. 17 elections. PLAN leaders said they had collected more than 80,000 signatures. They need 56,785 valid ones to place the measure before voters.

PLAN officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Critics of the initiative, which includes provisions that seek to force builders to pay their fair share of services accompanying new development, have said it would shut down growth and drive up housing prices.

Fred Pierce, director of the real estate group at Price Waterhouse and chairman of Taxpayers for Civic Responsibility, said the lawsuit is designed to keep PLAN’s managed-growth initiative off the June ballot while simultaneously attempting to enforce the state law on petitions that took effect this year.

“We are very concerned about the impact of this proposed initiative on our economy, particularly at a time when we’re in a down economy,” Pierce said. He said that the new law, which requires a printed notice on petitions that volunteers and paid circulators may be gathering signatures, has not been tested in court anywhere in the state.

While the lawsuit appears to be aimed primarily at PLAN’s initiative, it also names the Parks and Wildlife Protection Initiative being circulated by San Diegans for Managed Growth. Efforts to gather signatures for that measure are foundering and may be abandoned if money to hire paid circulators cannot be found, initiative leaders have said.

That initiative seeks to overturn a City Council decision to extend Jackson Drive through Mission Trails Regional Park and block development in the urban reserve on San Diego’s northern fringe.

Bob Glaser, a political consultant and leader of San Diegans for Managed Growth, said that he doubts that a judge would be willing to throw out months of efforts by organizations circulating petitions over a technicality.

Mikel Haas, elections director in the City Clerk’s office, said that because San Diego has its own charter and elections code, it is not bound by the new state law in the case of the PLAN initiative, which technically would create a new local ordinance.

The rules governing the Parks and Wildlife initiative are less clear, Haas said, because that initiative seeks to amend the City Charter.

Haas said his office has been awaiting an interpretation of the new state law since May, when a political consultant complained that the notice had been left off the petitions.

The lawsuit seeks to force PLAN and the managed-growth group to circulate new petitions containing the disclaimer and to prevent Abdelnour’s office from receiving signed petitions already collected, said Robert Ottilie, attorney for Taxpayers for Civic Responsibility.