San Bernardino County ballot initiative Measure Z, which would have repealed a tax that brings in $42.7 annually to firefighters if approved, was blocked from the June 7 ballot by San Bernardino Superior Judge David Cohn March 28.
Cohn ruled that the Measure Z campaign violated California law by containing false and misleading information.
Measure Z’s proponents appealed March 30.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, stayed Cohn’s decision until they rule on the appeal.
The Red Brennan Group, the funder behind Measure Z, has not responded to calls for comment.
The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District Service Zone Five is responsible for fighting and preventing fires in 19,278 of San Bernardino County’s 20,053 square miles, according to the complaint filed by the district.
Its jurisdiction includes Grand Terrace, Upland, San Bernardino, Needles, Yucca Valley, Helendale Community Services District, the Crest Forest Fire Protection District, the City of Twentynine Palms Water District and all unincorporated areas of the county not already receiving fire protection.
It receives $42.7 million annually from a special tax of $161 per parcel, first established exclusively for Helendale in 2006, and was expanded to include other areas since then, according to the county counsel’s impartial analysis of the initiative.
A legal challenge to the annexation of those areas, CIVDS1826559, resulted in a San Bernardino Superior Court decision that California’s Constitution does not require a vote before expanding the boundary covered by the special tax, according to the analysis.
The Red Brennan Group, a political nonprofit funded by a former San Bernardino County resident and current telecommunications owner Eric Steinmann, and run by Escondido lobbyist Tom Murphy, was behind that 2018 decision. They are the sponsors of the tax repeal initiative, according to campaign documents.
The text used by the proponents of Measure Z claimed the annexation was unconstitutional, stating that:
“Thereafter, despite significant protest, the County added additional areas to [the district] expanding the parcel tax burden without a vote of the people living in those add-on areas. In 2018, despite extraordinary protest, the County annexed “…all unincorporated territory…” along with additional incorporated areas into [the district], imposing the parcel tax without the vote of the people residing in those areas.
“Even though the Constitution of California prohibits taxation without two-thirds voter approval, in 2020, the Fire District Board of Directors, without voter approval, imposed a tax on every parcel in [the district] set at $157.26 for the year 2020-2021.
“The County’s sidestep of the provisions of the California Constitution has victimized property owners whose parcels have been annexed and who are now required to pay an ever increasing (up to 3% per year) annual parcel tax they didn’t vote on. Further, without a prohibition in place, additional victims and their properties will potentially be added to [the district] and its tax without their vote of approval.”
The district sued County Registrar Bob Page Feb. 8, alleging that those paragraphs contain false statements that violate Elections Code Section 18600 and precedent established in the 2008 case, San Francisco Forty-Niners v. Nishioka.
The election code states circulators of local initiatives who knowingly circulate false statements or misrepresentations concerning the purport of any local initiative are guilty of a misdemeanor.
Cohn agreed with the district’s complaint, ruling that those specific paragraphs violate the law by falsely claiming implying that the tax is unconstitutional and was improperly adopted.
“The initiative implies that the tax is unconstitutional and was improperly adopted. (See Initiative ¶ 3, 4, 5.) The court has already determined in a previous case that the annexation argument advanced as a ground for constitutional invalidity of the tax is incorrect,” Cohn wrote.
The district had also claimed that the initiative proponents violated the full-text doctrine by not including full historical information about the special tax and its expansion.
Cohn rejected that argument, establishing that the initiative proponents only need to include the full text of the statute.
The initiative proponents also argued that the special tax is unfair, unnecessary and wasted, and that the county reduced service by closing more than 15 fire stations, in their arguments for the initiative.
Robert Cable, David Jarvi, Ruth Musser-Lopez, Charles Pruitt and Albert Vogler are the main proponents.
The initiative opponents argued that the proponents lied about the county closing fire stations, that 15 fire stations will close if the tax is repealed, that it will delay response times by 9 minutes, and that homeowner insurance costs will increase by $500 per year
James Grigoli, San Bernardino Firefighter Association Local 935 president; realtor Michael Stoffel; insurance agent Phillip Cothran of Cothran Insurance Agency and president of the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association Larry Smith, are listed as opponents in the arguments.
Parties
Alexander Frank, Carl Michel and Joseph Di Monda of Long Beach’s Michel & Associates represent the initiative proponents.
Bradley Hertz, Nicholas Sanders and John Blattner of Los Angeles’ Sutton Law Firm PC represent the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District.
Deputy County Counsel Jolena Grider represents County Registrar Bob Page.
San Bernardino Superior Judge David Cohn presides.
Case No. CIVSB2201601
Appellate Case No. E078756
Read the complaint here.
