La Jolla cityhood advocates file motion for dismissal of S.D. lawsuit

Adding to the legal actions surrounding the effort to make La Jolla its own city, the Association for the City of La Jolla has filed a court motion seeking dismissal of a lawsuit brought by San Diego challenging the cityhood process.

ACLJ contends the city’s lawsuit, filed earlier this year, is a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP — what the association calls a “meritless attempt to obstruct democratic participation and silence a public interest effort through costly litigation.”

The group’s anti-SLAPP motion, if granted, could result in dismissal of the city lawsuit. A hearing is scheduled for April 4 in Superior Court in San Diego.

The Superior Court calendar does not list a hearing date for the city’s lawsuit.

“This case is a classic SLAPP … in which the city is impermissibly interfering with the association’s constitutionally protected rights of petition and free speech,” according to the ACLJ filing, dated Aug. 25. The lawsuit, it says, is an attempt “to squelch the First Amendment rights of the association, its members and the thousands of La Jolla residents who signed the petition to pursue the possibility of creating a new city.”

ACLJ added in a statement that “this is a textbook case of voter suppression” and that “San Diego voters should be deeply alarmed that City Hall is using public funds to attack a community-driven process, one that simply seeks an open and transparent assessment of whether La Jolla could operate as an independent city. The action of city officials aims to block this process before it can be properly evaluated. In the end, the decision of becoming a city belongs to the voters.”

The San Diego city attorney’s office said it would have “no comment on pending litigation.”

Though the city lawsuit was filed against the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission — or LAFCO, a regional agency that provides guidance to communities seeking to become cities — ACLJ says it is a “real party in interest” in the case and that courts “have specifically held that a real party in interest may bring an anti-SLAPP motion whenever it … will be impacted by [the] outcome.” 

ACLJ set out last year on a six-month effort to gather signatures from 25% of La Jolla’s registered voters, or 6,536, in support of the separation initiative. The petition drive was a required step to keep the cityhood application process going.

In mid-December, the group submitted nearly 8,000 signatures for review and validation by the San Diego County registrar of voters office and LAFCO. 

However, the registrar of voters office said in March that the group fell 1,027 short of the number required because of signatures determined to be invalid or in need of information such as a date or an address.

LAFCO gave ACLJ from March 17 to April 1 to correct the invalid signatures, collect new ones or both to fill the gap. The group came up with 1,506.

On April 29, the association received a letter saying it had collected a total of 6,772 valid signatures, putting it over the threshold.

Soon after, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria issued a formal objection that argued LAFCO overstepped in the process of verifying the signatures, and he disputed many of the signatures that ultimately were deemed valid.

The city’s objection said “the [registrar of voters] reviewed both the petition and supplemental petition [the second round of signature-gathering] and found them insufficient, with a shortfall of 218 valid signatures.”

The city stated that ACLJ “requested to review the rejected signatures and contest those they believe the [registrar of voters] improperly rejected.”

LAFCO conducted a secondary review of the contested signatures on the supplemental petition and ultimately “overruled the [registrar’s] rejection on 239 signatures,” the city said.

Of the 239 “resurrected” signatures, the city said it was “allowed to review 212.” The city contended that of those, only 33 were valid, and it objected to the remaining 179.

The city also said it “objects to LAFCO’s secondary review of the signatures [ACLJ] contested” and believes the registrar of voters should be the authority on whether signatures are valid.

On May 2, LAFCO issued a formal response to San Diego’s objection, calling many of the city’s claims “inaccurate” and saying it was moving forward with the cityhood application process.

Ten days later, the San Diego City Council decided on a 6-0 vote during a closed session to authorize legal action over LAFCO’s handling of the petition signatures.

On June 19, the city filed a lawsuit seeking to stop LAFCO and its executive officer, Keene Simonds, from proceeding with the cityhood process, which includes launching an administrative review of the application filed in late January by the Association for the City of La Jolla.  

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by City Attorney Heather Ferbert, was amended in July to state that the cityhood review process would impose “substantial irreparable harm” on San Diego due to the costs associated with staff time required for the next steps and that dedicating staff members’ time to that process would take away from “performing their core functions.”

The city sought “preliminary and permanent injunctions ordering LAFCO and [Simonds] … to rescind the certificate of sufficiency” and issue a certificate of insufficiency indicating that the petition “was not signed by the requisite number of signers and enjoining LAFCO from continuing the proceedings.”  

Should a certificate of insufficiency be issued, ACLJ would have to restart the petition process.