SAN JOSE — After four years of litigation and millions of dollars to fight Measure B, a judge on Tuesday denied a legal attempt to stop the city from repealing the pension reform initiative voters approved in 2012.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Beth McGowen rejected efforts by former Councilman Pete Constant and the Silicon Valley Taxpayers’ Association to block the city from invalidating the controversial measure.
“The voters have been sold out here,” Marguerite Mary Leoni, Constant’s attorney, said after the hearing. “The city failed to defend Measure B.”
During Tuesday’s swift hearing, the judge also upheld an order from last month to accept a request from the San Jose Police Officers’ Association and the city to overturn the measure on a “procedural defect” — that the city didn’t fully bargain with labor unions before placing the initiative on the ballot. That was the city’s strategy to overturn Measure B and replace it with a negotiated settlement with its unions.
“Reasonableness prevailed today, and hopefully Pete Constant will spend some time fixing his resume and allow us to continue down the path of fixing what he helped break,” said Tom Saggau, a spokesman for the police union.
But Constant and the taxpayers’ group said 69 percent of San Jose voters approved Measure B and a judge can’t just “wipe it off the books.” They asked McGowen to defend the initiative process and consider vacating her order. McGowen agreed to take under submission the arguments presented Tuesday.
But legal experts say it was a move to appease opponents since she issued the order in March before hearing their arguments in court — and that it was unlikely she would change her ruling.
Opponents also are questioning the city’s transparency in the legal proceedings. One day before Constant and his group, funded by Republican billionaire Charles Munger Jr., submitted their court documents, Mayor Sam Liccardo called an emergency closed session during the March 8 council meeting.
According to multiple sources, the council signed off on legal papers requesting the repeal of Measure B and submitted them to the court — which the judge granted a week later on March 15. San Jose, which prides itself on its “sunshine” laws, did not report any action was taken during that closed session.
“Those documents were signed and were not made public,” Leoni said.
City Attorney Rick Doyle said “there was nothing to report out” and that Constant’s camp is “grasping at straws.”
“I would say the purpose of the Brown Act was to give people notice of a settlement, and we did that last August,” Doyle said.
But if the attorneys can prove an open-government violation occurred, it might force the City Council to reconsider the item and give the opponents more time.
The San Jose police union’s attorney said Measure B should never have been on the ballot. He called Tuesday’s ruling a “victory” for city employees and San Jose residents.
“Measure B is dead. This turns the clock back four years to where we should have been had we engaged in negotiations,” Gregg Adam said. “We could have avoided millions of dollars in litigation and the collapse of our Police Department.”
While Measure B is indisputably on life support, it’s not dead just yet.
Leoni said her team is looking at all “legal remedies,” including an appeal or requesting a new trial. Doyle said he’s prepared to fight back.
But Constant believes the dispute can be resolved by asking voters to approve the entire settlement framework reached with unions last summer. The city drafted a November ballot measure that asks voters to approve future pension increases, but not the settlement itself. With the judge’s approval, city officials agree the settlement will be enacted regardless of voters’ input.
“I’m a little amazed at how many hoops they are jumping through to prevent the entire agreement going to the voters,” Constant said. “To me, there’s something very odd about that.”
Contact Ramona Giwargis at 408-920-5705. Follow her at Twitter.com/ramonagiwargis.
