Judge: Restraining order against East Palo Alto only applied to one meeting

Thursday, July 30, 2009
Jessica Bernstein-Wax
MercuryNews.com

A judge clarified Thursday that a temporary restraining order she issued against East Palo Alto earlier this week only barred the city council from discussing a rent control law at Tuesday night's special meeting, rather than on an ongoing basis.

The distinction is important because East Palo Alto must submit the new rent stabilization ordinance to county officials by Aug. 7 for it to appear on November ballots.

Attorneys for Palo Alto-based Page Mill Properties, which owns about 1,800 rental units in the city of 32,000, asked for the order earlier this week in alleging East Palo Alto employees violated the Ralph M. Brown Act by failing to properly notice public meetings. The company also accused council members of discussing the ordinance behind closed doors without justification.

City Attorney Vince Ewing said he didn't listen to a phone message in time and therefore didn't attend the court proceedings Tuesday.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman said in court Thursday that she issued the order because Woodland Park Management, Page Mill's property management arm, "did have a likelihood of prevailing on the merits."

However, the "order that I signed did not in any way prevent the city having subsequent meetings" on the rent stabilization ordinance, she said.

"I simply enjoined it from occurring July 28," Freeman said. "I specifically advised Woodland Park that I expected the city would hold a
public meeting with new notice. It would have no future bearing on any action because the meeting and the agenda item ... would have passed."

Freeman noted that her ruling didn't prevent Woodland Park from filing further Brown Act complaints against East Palo Alto in the coming days. Page Mill and its subsidiaries are engaged in a bitter legal dispute with the city over rent hikes and other issues, with about 10 lawsuits pending.

Ewing said Thursday he previously had a different understanding of Freeman's ruling after reading the order and discussing the matter with a Page Mill attorney.

"What the judge ordered today was not inconsistent with what the ruling was," Page Mill spokesman Adam Alberti said Thursday. "It was just not clearly understood exactly what she had ruled earlier. These things happen very quickly, and there was an order issued, and it took a little while to figure out what it meant."

Alberti added that while the company still believes there were Brown Act violations, "we are satisfied by the city attorney's admission that they discussed the item in closed session with consultants and hope this action will serve as a corrective measure in future noting and discussion of the ordinance."

The city will schedule a public meeting in the coming days to nail down final changes to the ordinance, intended to update and strengthen the current decades-old rent control law, ahead of the county deadline, Ewing said.

"It's the city's objective to put the ordinance on the ballot for the people," Ewing said. "The city will duly notice any future meetings to comply with the Brown Act so that we can achieve that objective."

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