It is all over but the shouting. Billionaires bought the Sacramento Kings. Then the city used eminent domain to steal private property for the billionaires. Now the people’s effort to vote on hundreds of millions of bonds to build the billionaires an arena for their play toy will not go on the ballot. They had enough signatures—but technical issues will keep it off the ballot and the poor and middle class unable to afford tickets to see the Kings play will be forced to pay for their arena anyway.
The people still have a choice—they can Recall the Mayor that prompted this and the city council members that support this theft by government for billionaires—this is something the Right and the Left can agree on. Then force the billionaires to pay full cost. They want it, they can pay for it.
“Because the issues are so pervasive, he said, not only was the city clerk more than obliged to reject them, he said, a judge would be obliged to uphold her finding. Hiltachk said the petitions might have had a chance under a legal concept known as “substantial compliance” if the identified issues were small and just technical, but that’s not the case here.”
Arena ballot measure has little chance in court, elections attorney says
Ben van der Meer, Sacramento Business Journal, 1/27/14
An attorney who specializes in elections law said proponents of an arena ballot measure hoping for a better reception in civil court than they got from the Sacramento city clerk may not find it.
Thomas Hiltachk, who’s done work in the past for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, said the flaws the city of Sacramento’s clerk noted in rejecting petitions for the measure go beyond small technical issues.
“I think the clerk identified failures to comply with legal requirements by these groups, basically from start to finish,” Hiltachk said.
Because the issues are so pervasive, he said, not only was the city clerk more than obliged to reject them, he said, a judge would be obliged to uphold her finding. Hiltachk said the petitions might have had a chance under a legal concept known as “substantial compliance” if the identified issues were small and just technical, but that’s not the case here.
Hiltachk also said in such cases, judges give deference to city clerks because it’s a clerk’s primary responsibility to examine such petitions.
Because more than 23,000 signed petitions – however flawed – in favor of asking voters whether the public should weigh in on the arena, judges are obliged to also give some deference to the power of the initiative process, Hiltachk said. But that too, is weighed against a process designed to accurately reflect voter intent.
“The process has to be followed for the benefit of voters themselves,” Hiltachk said.
