On April 15, the Superior Court in Ventura will hear our lawsuit against the City of Oxnard seeking a judge’s order for the City Attorney to provide the legally required “title and summary” for our initiative to repeal wastewater utility rate increases.
While we anticipate that we will prevail in that hearing, past experience suggests that the city might engage in further delay even if we prevail...
It wouldn’t surprise us if the city tries to ask the judge to grant them additional time to draft the “title and summary,” which we need to begin gathering signatures.
The City Attorney has been legally obligated to provide us this required document since March 8. State law grants him only 15 days to perform this ministerial duty. There is no valid reason for him to not have one ready for our use on April 15.
To eliminate any excuse for his being unprepared, our legal team drafted a proposed title and summary for the City Attorney. We’re confident that the City Attorney is capable of performing his prescribed task in less than five weeks, since it took our team less than one day to do it.
If after the April 15 hearing, the city argues they still need additional time to do their job, it is merely another entry in a long list of delay tactics employed by the city.