Remember "got vote?"
Why Californians for Property Rights filed a lawsuit.
For nearly ten years, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) has engaged in a plan to annex the entire coast of San Mateo County into its district. This annexation impacts the land use policies and the rights of the land owners over the entire San Mateo Coast. As such, it is a fairly important step that MROSD seeks to take.
During the process, the notice published to the public did not contain most of the elements required by law. The notice did not correctly state the area that was to be annexed, did not state the reasons why the land was to be annexed as well as other violations.
In the spring of 2004, the public was allowed to submit written protests to LAFCo (Local Agency Formation Commission). If more then 25% of the voters submitted protests, then the matter must be submitted to a vote of the people. Actually, more than 25% did submit protests. However, LAFCo invalidated many of the protests. The quantity of invalidated protests in this case is much higher than the normal rate. CPR wondered why.
In throwing out the protests, LAFCo used the wrong provisions of law to evaluate the protests. In a written letter, elections officials state that they applied the provisions of the law concerning other types of matters instead of the sections that are to be used for this type of protest. Californians for Property Rights’ contention is that in doing so, the public was denied their right to vote on the matter.
LAFCo also improperly rejected many protests for other reasons. One example is that LAFCo determined that one woman lived outside of the district, while determining that her housemate lived inside the district. LAFCo also compared one voter’s signature to the wrong registration, which belonged to another voter, and improperly threw that voter’s protest out as well. In this case, even if you use LAFCo’s numbers, the protests are barely short of the 25%. So if you start adding up the mistakes and the improperly invalidated protests, you get over the 25% number.
We wanted the right to vote!