File photo by Andrew Goff.

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Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Timothy Canning this morning dismissed one of several lawsuits against the City of Eureka brought by backers of an upcoming election initiative aimed at preserving downtown parking spaces by blocking several housing development projects.

Munson (left) and Costantine-Blackwell at a town hall meeting last month. | File photo by Andrew Goff.

Michael Munson and Michelle Costantine-Blackwell, the organizers behind the “City of Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative,” still have four cases pending that accuse the city of violating the California Environmental Quality Act, but today’s suit concerned alleged violations of state election code. 

(The other four cases were filed by Citizens for a Better Eureka, a group to which both Munson and Costantine-Blackwell belong.)

Representing the plaintiffs and appearing via Zoom, attorney Brad Johnson argued that the city was legally obligated to certify the “Housing for All” initiative at its Oct. 3, 2023, meeting. He cited California Elections Code section 9115(d), which says that once a voter initiative has verifiably gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, an election official “shall certify the results … at the next regular meeting of the board.”  

Instead, the Eureka City Council didn’t certify the initiative until its subsequent regular meeting, which was held two weeks later, on Oct. 17.

Eureka City Attorney Autumn Luna, who appeared in person this morning, reasoned that the agenda for the Oct. 3 meeting had already been set and publicly circulated by the time the “Housing for All” petition signatures were verified on Sept. 28.

She also argued that none of this really matters at this point. The initiative will appear on Eureka’s General Election ballots in November. No harm, no foul, essentially.

But Johnson argued that Eureka needs to be reprimanded, at the very least, to ensure that this behavior doesn’t happen again.

“The bottom line is the city violated the law,” he said. “That’s harm enough.”

Johnson also accused city officials of lying when they claimed that the “next meeting” after the county clerk-recorder certified those petition signatures was the one on October 17.

“Your Honor, I don’t know what to call that. Obviously, it’s not the truth,” Johnson said.

He said the city had “plenty of time” to get the matter inserted onto the Oct. 3 agenda, noting that the Brown Act, California’s open meetings law, simply requires that agendas be posted at least 72 hours in advance. In this case, the city had almost six days.

“Black and white, that’s a violation of the Elections Code,” Johnson argued.

Autumn countered that the city needs to “harmonize” its obligations under election law with other considerations, including compliance with its own Sunshine Ordinance, a 2017 public transparency measure that means the city circulates its agendas up to a week before public meetings are actually held.

And besides, she said, the petitioners didn’t raise any objections about the timing until just hours before the Oct. 3 meeting, at which point it was far too late to do anything.

Johnson said that’s not the point.

“I am not the city attorney,” he noted. “It’s not my job to monitor the city’s compliance with the law.”

But Judge Canning ultimately sided with Luna. He said that the concept of a “regular meeting” includes the idea of “regular notice” procedures, and in this instance Eureka staff would have had to resort to “special procedures” to get the matter on the Oct. 3 agenda with such short notice.

He also said, “The court is concerned about the lack of actual harm, because all of the events have already occurred.”

Canning sustained a demurrer filing from the city, dismissing the case “without leave to amend,” meaning his ruling cannot be appealed the case cannot be refiled in Humboldt County Superior Court.

In the courthouse hallway afterward, Luna said she didn’t want to comment on such a politically charged matter, especially when there are still four more cases pending.

“I will say I’m happy for the city,” she offered. “This was a good outcome for the city today.”

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[CORRECTION: This post has been updated to reflect that the dismissal “without leave to amend” does not preclude appeal to a higher court. We have also clarified the identify of the plaintiffs in the CEQA suits against the city.]

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