A new rent law East Palo Alto leaders spent months crafting will not appear on November's ballot after the city's biggest landlord successfully blocked it in court, city officials said this week.
San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered county employees to remove the new rent stabilization ordinance from the ballot earlier this month after attorneys for Palo Alto-based Page Mill Properties argued the city council violated state laws in drafting it, East Palo Alto City Attorney Vince Ewing and Mayor Ruben Abrica said.
East Palo Alto submitted the ordinance to the county elections office in early August, but Page Mill attorneys filed a lawsuit just days later accusing city officials of committing numerous Ralph M. Brown Act violations and failing to analyze the environmental impacts of the proposed law as the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, requires.
In her verbal ruling Sept. 3, Judge Freeman said East Palo Alto erred by not rebutting expert testimony Page Mill submitted during the council's final meeting on the subject, Ewing said. Those documents indicated the law could have a negative economic impact on landlords, he added.
"The judge's ruling affirms what we have been saying all along — the city simply failed to follow the basic legal procedures required before placing an ordinance on the ballot for consideration by the voters," Page Mill attorney Christine Griffith said in a statement.
"Judge Freeman recognized the principle that government officials do not own the legislative process. The people of East Palo Alto have a right to an open and transparent electoral process."
Mayor Abrica said Freeman also agreed with Griffith that city officials probably conferred about the ordinance behind closed doors, an act California law prohibits.
"It's based on an inference from an inference from an inference," Abrica said, noting Griffith made the allegation even though she wasn't present at the closed session.
"That is not what we did," Abrica said. "We did not start discussing the ordinance."
The new law could appear on ballots in a February special election, but Abrica said it likely won't make it on until June because of cost and time considerations.
"It's a minor setback, but it will go on the ballot," Abrica said.
Page Mill and the city have been involved in a bitter legal dispute over rent hikes and other issues, with about 10 active lawsuits between the two parties. The city elected to revise its decades-old rent ordinance in part to close loopholes and bring it up to date with state law.
Page Mill has recently experienced financial difficulties, and another San Mateo County Superior Court judge appointed a third party to run its approximately 1,800 East Palo Alto properties earlier this month.
However, the company has apparently continued to pursue its many lawsuits despite missing a $50 million balloon payment to Wells Fargo Bank last month and temporarily abandoning its apartment complexes.
Attorney William D. Ross appeared at a San Mateo Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCo, meeting Wednesday afternoon to represent the company.
Ross filed documents with LAFCo in June asking the agency to remove areas west and south of Highway 101 from the city's "sphere of influence" because of an alleged lack of governmental and police oversight there.
If approved, the move could be a first step toward unincorporating part of a city that had struggled a long time to form.
However, LAFCo staff has not recommended Ross' request.
On Wednesday board members decided to continue the item to next month's meeting so they could study East Palo Alto's comments on the sphere of influence review.
Ross criticized the city for submitting those comments the day of the meeting.
"It's just one more indication of the lack of government," he said.
San Mateo County Elections Manager David Tom said last month he had never seen a judge order a ballot measure removed in his 18 years working in elections offices.
"We're just following the court's order to not have the measure on the ballot," Tom said Wednesday. "Our ballot has gone to our printers for printing as of last Friday."
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