Monday’s deadline to contest Foothill-De Anza’s successful June bond election brought one voice of dissent, with one more on the way.
Mountain View attorney Gary Wesley, on behalf of a friend, Los Altos attorney Melvin Emerich, has joined the community college’s validation action to challenge the $491 million bond measure. Voters approved the measure in June to provide long-overdue facilities renovations and technology upgrades to Foothill and De Anza colleges.
After being granted a 10-day extension past Monday’s deadline, Saratoga attorney Aaron Katz says he also plans on joining the validation action by July 27.
Measure C passed with 65 percent of the vote on June 6. The college district immediately pursued a validation action — a specialized type of lawsuit to ensure the legitimacy of the bond election — to prevent future litigants from challenging the measure, and to be able to prevent construction delays.
The action preempted a potential lawsuit by Katz, who has brought legal actions against several local school districts and El Camino Hospital over their bond and parcel tax elections. The suits have resulted in construction delays, legal fees and increased building costs, all of which Foothill-De Anza hoped to avoid.
Prior to the election, Katz had indicated that he was considering suing the district if Measure C passed. In his previous lawsuits against other districts, he argued that he should be able to vote in an election as a property owner — he owns 10 Mountain View condos — even though he lives outside of the district.
“Since 50 percent or more of voters are not property owners and as such won’t have to pay a penny of the tax, the process becomes a joke,” he wrote the Voice in a May e-mail about Measure C. “Politicians call it securing the will of those primarily affected. I call it manipulation of the process because the ends justify the means.”
Wesley’s main gripe with Measure C differs from Katz’s. He says the bond does not comply with Proposition 39 because it lacks a list of specific campus improvements. Proposition 39, which passed in 2000, allows school bonds like Measure C to pass with 55 percent of the vote instead of two thirds.
The measure’s full text breaks down bond-funded projects by campus and includes items such as: “Improve safety and disabled access … Remove all harmful asbestos … Upgrade classrooms/labs for nursing and emergency medical services.”
But Wesley thinks this is not enough.
“Measure C is a blank check with regard to the projects to be funded,” Wesley said, adding that the district could “bait and switch” to use the bond money for “Jacuzzis and massages and a palace for the now higher-paid administrators.”
Now that the deadline has passed for members of the public to join the validation action, the issue will come to trial “on an expedited basis,” said Foothill-De Anza attorney Sean Absher, who must first look at what Wesley and Katz have filed.
“We would evaluate the claims that are being made and decide how to challenge them in the court proceeding,” said Sean Absher, Foothill-De Anza’s attorney. “No decision will be made and won’t be made until we have an opportunity to thoroughly review what’s been filed.”
E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com
