Attorney's suit on tax proceeds Attorney's suit on tax proceeds (April 22, 2005)

Challenge of parcel tax, hospital bonds may go to trial next month

By Kathy Schrenk

Lawsuits against two local school districts and the hospital district are moving closer to trial, with lawyers for the districts arguing that the suits should be dismissed, or, at the very least, consolidated because they are so similar.

Saratoga resident Aaron Katz has filed suit against the Mountain View-Whisman School District, the West Valley-Mission Community College District and the El Camino Hospital District over elections in which residents have voted in favor of measures that would increase property taxes. Katz owns property in those districts.

He maintains that he and other non-resident property owners should be allowed to have a say, because they are the ones who will have to pay for the increases - not the renters or "mere residents" who live there.

Lawyers for the districts are asking Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Kevin McKenney to combine the three lawsuits into one because the arguments in all three are basically the same, they say. Katz disagrees, saying that the Mountain View-Whisman case has special problems related to the type of taxes authorized by the vote.

McKenney said he would decide on the consolidation by the end of the week, and Tuesday he indicated he was favoring it.

"Essentially it's another grouping of the same claims," the judge said. "You're saying the same thing with variations on a theme," he told Katz. He added that Katz' pleadings are "very complex and lengthy." Another hearing is scheduled for April 29 and the trial is scheduled to start May 2.

John Ottoboni, an attorney for the hospital district, argued at a hearing Tuesday that Katz was not an elector in the district and that "a municipality can restrict an election based on residency." The hospital's purpose is to improve the health of everyone in the community, not just those who have to pay for it, and therefore the vote should be open to all, Ottoboni said. "That's the way it goes under the democratic system."

If Katz succeeds, El Camino officials said there will likely be a delay in the hospital's construction plans. And Mountain View-Whisman would be forced to reimburse taxpayers millions of dollars, which would be devastating to the already cash-strapped district. The district has already spent $50,000 fighting the suit.

Mark Williams, an attorney for the college district, argued that the kind of challenge Katz is filing has to be done sooner than 60 days after the election, which Katz did not do. "If you're going to do something as severe as overturning a democratic election, you have to do that in a timely manner," Williams said. Katz countered that that's only the case when you are challenging the counting of the votes.

The school district's Measure J, a $1.6 million annual parcel tax, won with 69 percent of the vote last March. It costs the average property owner $75 a year. Measure D, the hospital's $148 million bond, won with 70 percent of the vote in November 2003. Homeowners are charged $12.90 per $100,000 in assessed value of their property annually.
E-mail Kathy Schrenk at kschrenk@mv-voice.com

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