By George Miller
Oxnard calls emergency special meeting to place Starr voter initiatives on ballot with their modified prejudicial language in possible violation of the law.
Local financial executive and activist Aaron Starr is known as an enfant terrible of local Oxnard politics- hated and feared by statists- especially most local Oxnard officials. Unsuccessful in running for office multiple times with eye-popping budgets, he has done better in passing ballot initiatives and litigating against the city, via his well-funded and volunteer-staffed Moving Oxnard Forward organization.
Their latest campaign was five initiatives to transform city government, which the city has done everything possible to stop, legally, and as it turns out, illegally and immorally as well.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh just ruled yesterday that three of Starr’s initiatives, which the Council, with the connivance of the City Attorney and a bought and paid for consultant, point blank refused to put on the ballot- in direct violation of both statutory and case law- MUST be placed on the ballot. Ruling: 2020_07_15 Final Ruling – Writ on Cross-Petition
You would think that would be enough, but noooooooo, they are very persistently slow learners. Now, they are calling a snap special council meeting on this at 1 pm this Friday that hardly anyone will be able to attend. (Well actually, none of the public can attend in person anyway because of COVID-19 orders, but they can at least write or phone in).
To make it worse, they are pulling another trick- rewriting the ballot language in an apparently prejudicial way that appears to be illegal, based on the law which says, in summary, that you are required to put it as a true and impartial synopsis, not argumentative, or likely to create prejudice, in a neutral question format.
Are they allowed to rewrite language which was already written? If so, are they allowed to rewrite it so prejudicially?
Why don’t you look at it yourself and decide if it is? Then, you might want to weigh in on it at the meeting- on line, anyway.
See AGENDA for July 17, 2020 meeting language and how to voice your opinion.
See original January 15 AGENDA
We received this from Alicia Percell of Moving Oxnard Forward
Compare the ballot questions they are proposing for our measures on tomorrow night’s agenda (attached) with the ones they wrote for the January 15 initial consideration of the same measures.
I’ve attached the materials from January 15 showing the ballot questions they previously proposed, which were quite different. See the following pages in that packet:p. 140 – meetings ballot questionp. 147 – streets ballot questionp. 163 – treasurer ballot questionNotice for the one which requires fixing the streets to certain pavement condition standards or else Measure O sunsets early, their new ballot language doesn’t even disclose that the ending or extension of the tax is predicated on their street repair performance. They don’t want to mention any street repair requirements because they know it would be popular. They completely fail to disclose to the voters that core aspect of our initiative.
-Alicia
Our understanding is that such language belongs in the counter-argument, NOT in the actual initiative language.
Watching the antics of the council, and reporting on it for over seven years now (both in news articles and opinion articles. In case you haven’t noticed, this is an opinion article), I have some questions: the council repeatedly takes questionable actions, most of which are supported by the City Attorney’s office with rhetoric and often, with very expensive litigation,even if obviously illegal, like this one was. Is a City Attorney required to warn the Council and City Manager when he sees a legal problem? Does the council overrule him and if so, what are the City Attorney’s options and legal requirements when this happens? Is this such a case? If so, what did the City Attorney do about it? Just asking. Someone has to.
By the way, have you also noticed that the new supposedly more transparent agendas are no longer cut and pastable or even searchable (try it yourself)? Gee, thanks, Oxnard.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.
George Miller is Publisher/Co-Founder of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard.
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Once again our city leaders play fast and loose with the law, and our tax dollars. Changing the language was their illegal attempt to influence the voters in a prejudicial matter, which is illegal. That is crystal clear! What they did to lead up to these measures making the ballot was reprehensible. The judge clearly sided with the law, as is his obligation, and not because there was no time to make a ruling, as Mayor Tim Flynn suggested. He ruled! We need to see Measure E, in its entirety soon. They will most likely drag their feet in getting this to the public, as to avoid scrutiny, and comment. They can run, but they cannot hide from the truth. Vote!
It is ironic that you indicate that hardly anyone would be able to participate in Friday’s special City Council meeting when you, Aliicia Percell (spouse of proponent Aaron Starr), and Phillip Molina were either physically preset at the meeting and provided substantive comments (Molina) or provided substantive verbal comments regarding this matter (you and Percell).
Other City residents (both for and against the measures) were able to provide verbal comments and several individuals provided written comments.
The public was NOT allowed to attend. They had to email or phone only. Not being there makes a difference. If there had been more notice and if people could have attended, there would have been a lot more people involved and it would have significantly changed the dynamics of the meeting.
This is outrageous. Once again, Council/staff run roughshod over the interests of the People- and willfully break the law, thinking they can simply wear down legitimate opposition, with OUR money and their unlimited time, bought by us,
They’re making the city look like a “den of thieves”
Since 2009 the California Controller has published a document “Government Compensation in California”. Oxnard has submitted the requested information each year from 2009 to 2018. When looking up Oxnard in the 2019 (the latest) database it returns the message “This employer has submitted a non-compliant report to the State Controller’s Office.”
Oxnard’s report is non-compliant because it was never submitted. Four hundred seventy of the 482 California cities have submitted compliant information.
Hardly lives up to Oxnard’s claim of “transparency” and “sunshine”.