Taxpayer advocate files suit against ballot argument opposing Prop. A

By: KATHERINE MARKS - Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 7, 2004 11:35 PM PDT ∞

A taxpayer advocate has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to strike portions of a ballot summary for Proposition A, a measure to extend a countywide transportation tax, that she calls misleading.

"In these ballot arguments a certain degree of hyperbole is expected," said Lisa Briggs, the executive director of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which supports the tax measure. "When you start misstating the facts, that's crossing the line."

Briggs filed suit late Friday in Superior Court against county Supervisors Dianne Jacob and Pam Slater-Price and Roger Hedgecock, a conservative talk show host and a former San Diego mayor. The three, who oppose Prop. A, endorsed a rebuttal to the argument in favor of the measure that Briggs and others signed.

Each ballot summary has an argument in favor and argument against the measure and rebuttals to those arguments.

Jacob and Slater-Price said in an interview after a hearing on the lawsuit, that the suit is an attempt to muzzle free speech.

"We're entitled to our opinion and the law is on our side," said Jacob, who called the suit an abuse of the legal system. "They want to censor us so the voters won't know both sides of the story."

Slater-Price said, "Everything in the argument is factual. Otherwise I would have never put my name on the ballot."

A ruling is expected next week. The ballots are set to go to print Sept. 15.

Prop. A will ask voters in November to extend a half-cent countywide sales tax called TransNet for 40 years, starting in 2008. If passed, the extension is expected to raise $14 billion, with the revenues being split roughly in thirds between freeway, surface street and public transportation projects.

The suit also lists 10 unnamed parties and, in accordance with the law, county Registrar of Voters Sally McPherson.

"It really is one piece of information guaranteed to go to every registered voter," Briggs said of the ballot summary. "That makes it doubly important."

Briggs wants a judge to strike portions of the rebuttal that call an oversight committee charged with examining how TransNet revenues are spent an "insiders club" with "no citizen representation."

"I spent hundreds of hours dealing with the creation of the oversight committee," Briggs said. "A primary concern was this not be an insiders club. The committee will include a number of professionals, including architects, a chief executive officer, a professional biologist or environmental scientist and others.

She also wants the phrase "political appointees" removed. The rebuttal uses that phrase to describe the board members of the San Diego Association of Governments, the region's transportation planning agency, which is backing the extension.

"Political appointees is definitely a pejorative term and it's definitely not accurate," Briggs said.

The association board is comprised of council members and mayors from the 18 cities in the county, plus a county supervisor. They are chosen by the councils and other agencies they serve.

Slater-Price said there are a number of statements in the rebuttal and the statement against Prop. A that weren't challenged. "I sincerely believe everything in there is factual," she said.

Both supervisors, along with Supervisor Bill Horn, oppose the extension saying 50 percent of TransNet revenues should go to highways. Jacob has also been critical of rules that would allow the San Diego Association of Governments to change or delete projects, with few exceptions, with a two-thirds vote of the board.

Contact staff writer Katherine Marks at (760) 740-3529 or kmarks@nctimes.com.

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