Oct. 24 hearing set on motion by La Jolla cityhood advocates against S.D. lawsuit

A crucial court hearing that could determine the future of the La Jolla cityhood effort has been moved up to Friday, Oct. 24, after first being scheduled for next year. 

At the hearing, originally planned for April, Superior Court Judge Judy Bae will consider a motion by the Association for the City of La Jolla that seeks dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the city of San Diego challenging the cityhood process. The opportunity came with an unexpected opening on Bae’s calendar. 

The city’s lawsuit, filed in June, focuses on the process used to collect and verify petition signatures of people in favor of continuing the effort to make La Jolla its own city separate from San Diego. 

An ACLJ filing dated Aug. 25 contends the suit is a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, in what the association calls a “meritless attempt to obstruct democratic participation and silence a public interest effort through costly litigation.”

The lawsuit 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,” according to the filing, known as an anti-SLAPP motion.

Should the motion be upheld, San Diego’s lawsuit would be dismissed and the La Jolla cityhood effort could proceed unabated to the next steps, said ACLJ President Diane Kane. If the motion is denied, the city’s complaint would continue through the court system. 

A key next step in the process is an administrative review by the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, of the application filed in late January by the Association for the City of La Jolla.

Though San Diego’s lawsuit was filed against 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.” 

The Oct. 24 hearing is solely on the anti-SLAPP motion. The court calendar does not list a hearing date for the city’s lawsuit.

Background

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.

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 suit seeking to stop LAFCO and its executive officer, Keene Simonds, from proceeding with the cityhood process.  

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in San Diego 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.”