For months we have known that the district has put a measure on the ballot, Measure E, that would renew the current Measure A parcel tax levy (204 dollars) while creating a contingency to raise that amount by 242 dollars should the state tax Proposition 30 fail next week.
However, just ten days before the election, on Sunday, Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning argued that he was “looking over the ballot language for our latest school parcel tax, Measure E, and it’s just confusing enough that it’s unlikely to survive a court challenge should someone decide to sue after it passes.”
It is unclear whom Mr. Dunning consulted for this legal advice – a conclusion that both school district and county officials dispute.
At issue appears to be a comma where a semicolon should be.
The ballot measure reads: “To offset the continued loss of significant state funding, shall the Davis Joint Unified School District be authorized to continue a special tax for a period of 4 years not to exceed the base annual rate of $20.00 per dwelling unit for multi-dwelling parcels and $204.00 per parcel for all other parcels, and levy up to an additional $242 to cover State funding shortfalls ONLY if the November 2012 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education initiative does not pass?”
“Now, I know what the authors of this measure meant to say, but they crammed so many propositions into one sentence that the actual meaning is lost,” he writes.
At issue is the “comma” before “and levy up to an additional $242 to cover State funding shortfalls ONLY if the November 2012 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education initiative does not pass?”
The language says that there will be an additional $242 if Proposition 30 does not pass.
“Unfortunately for the district, that’s not what the measure asks,” Mr. Dunning writes. “And the ‘you know what I meant to say’ argument won’t hold water in a court of law if and when someone challenges this.”
Actually, according to the legal analysis the Vanguard received – it might hold a lot more water than Mr. Dunning believes, which is why he should have consulted a legal analyst.
We started with County Clerk Freddie Oakley, and it turns out there is a ten-day period by which ballot language can be challenged prior to the written ballot going out to the public. No one did.
After that point, the burden goes up way up. Ms. Oakley told the Vanguard that someone would have to sue the county regarding the language, but at this point, the county would be highly unlikely to intervene.
The burden would be even higher after the fact. The standard would have be an intent to deceive – putting a comma where, technically speaking, a semicolon would go would not meet the threshold for a legal challenge, and one legal analyst told the Vanguard that the petitioner would more likely than not be laughed out of court.
“The litmus test according to our attorneys is can a reasonable person understand what is being asked,” Superintendent Winfred Roberson told the Vanguard. “Based upon that litmus test our attorneys and the Yolo County attorneys seem to agree that the language passes that test.”
Ironically enough, when Mr. Dunning says, “Now I know what the authors of this measure meant to say,” that should be sufficient from the legal standpoint. The district would be able to pull in numerous news stories to bolster their case that the public was fully informed about the parcel tax and the conditions for the additional $242 contingency.
The county’s impartial analysis written by Hope Welton, Deputy County Counsel, makes this clear.
She writes: “This proposal, if approved by the voters, would authorize the Davis Joint Unified School District (“District”) to continue a special tax to support the District’s schools. It also authorizes the District to levy an additional special tax should the November 2012 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education initiative not pass.”
The county counsel writes: “If the measure is successful, the District’s Board of Trustees would be authorized to levy a parcel tax for a period of four (4) years, from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2017, at an annual rate of up to $20.00 per dwelling unit for all multi-dwelling unit parcels within the District and $204.00 per parcel for all other parcels within the District.”
She adds, “Should the November 2012 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education initiative not pass statewide election, the annual rate shall be up to $20.00 per dwelling unit for all multi-dwelling unit parcels within the District and $446.00 per parcel for all other parcels.”
Clear enough?
All parties we talked to said yes.
The Vanguard asked outgoing board member Richard Harris – who is not only running this campaign, but who inspired the parcel tax on the ballot – for a comment, but he declined comment, citing the need to focus on the issues at hand and not distractions.
The district believes if they were sued for clarification they would prevail. The court is not going to overturn the results of an election in which two-thirds of the public supported the measure, based on a misplaced comma.
The district argues that they have more than five months of news stories and campaign information making it very clear what the result would be of the parcel tax. The impartial analysis by the independent county counsel has no problem whatsoever discerning the meaning of the ballot measure.
Finally, there is the ten-day window to challenge ballot language that has come and gone. There is a reason why they put those windows in, and not having read the ballot until a week before the election is not an excuse to re-open the window.
Bottom line, a challenge goes nowhere and the public needs to make up their minds as to whether they wish to fund the school district with more parcel tax money.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Yesterday, Rusty49 was dutifully parroting Dunning, now he’s silent. Your move Rusty?