Not So Appealing: Starr Challenges Oxnard Appeal Victory Over Measure M Wastewater Rate Increase Rollback

Moving Oxnard Forward

As you probably remember, the City of Oxnard sued to overturn Measure M, our 2016 initiative which repealed the City Council’s abusive 87% sewer rate increase. Voters adopted Measure M with 73% of the vote.

We successfully defended ourselves in court and won in Ventura County Superior Court in 2018. The City appealed to the Court of Appeal, which announced two weeks ago that they have overturned the trial court’s decision: B295252-OPF-City of Oxnard-AStarr

While nearly every court ruling leaves one side unhappy, the Court of Appeal in this case made significant errors in its decision, including some material misstatements of the evidence. So last night we filed a Petition for Rehearing: Petition for Rehearing – Measure M. Among the errors noted in our Petition, the Court of Appeal incorrectly:

• Ignored California Supreme Court precedent.
• Assumed as true the City’s estimated $54,000 monthly loss, even though financial records show a $117,000 monthly surplus without the 87% increase.
• Concluded that no costs of the water system were born by the wastewater utility – even the City did not make this argument, probably because the evidence clearly shows that $55 million of water utility costs were charged to the wastewater utility.

This is the first step in petitioning the California Supreme Court for review, which we will do if the Court of Appeal does not reconsider its ruling.

As a side matter, we note that Oxnard City Hall has a self-serving policy when it comes to releasing information about their legal bills.

The City denied a Public Records Act request for an accounting of their legal bills when we won at the trial court, saying it was an active case. Now that they think they’ve won they are more than willing to disclose their legal costs — to use as a political weapon — even though this is still an active case.

The motivation for the City’s selective transparency is obvious.

Contrast that decision with one made a couple of years ago. The City settled a lawsuit with Mayer Hoffman McCann (MHM), the City’s outside auditors. The City did not want to admit responsibility for the inaccurate financial statements they produced, so they attempted to blame the auditor. The City settled, MHM admitted no wrongdoing and the City received no money.

The City spent a ton of money on that losing case, but denied a Public Records Act request to disclose how much they spent – and that case is closed!

We just resubmitted our request for those legal costs now that their policy seems to have changed.

Any City willing to play political games with what they are willing to disclose to the public cannot be trusted with more of your money.

And this lack of transparency is one more reason to Vote NO on Oxnard Measure E.

The City of Oxnard wants you to vote for Measure E, a massive 1.5% sales tax increase … with no end date!
That measure will double the City’s tax from 1.5% to 3%, making it the HIGHEST city rate in California: a dubious achievement shared only by Santa Cruz and Watsonville.

The better way to improve Oxnard is to Vote NO on Measure E’s tax increase and Vote YES on citizen-sponsored reform measures F, L, M and N to bring real transparency and accountability to City Hall, fix our streets and alleys, better fund Oxnard’s needs and produce more jobs for Oxnard’s economic recovery from COVID.

Vote NO on Measure E, and Vote YES on Measures F, L, M, and N.

Aaron Starr
[email protected]
805-804-9101
Paid for by Starr Coalition for Moving Oxnard Forward, a committee opposing Measure E; supporting Measures F, L, M and N. 2130 Posada Drive, Oxnard, CA 93030

Moving Oxnard Forward · United States

Editor’s note: See Citizens Journal Articles on Measure M

George Miller is Publisher/Co-Founder of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard.

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