On March 29, San Diego Judge Randa Trapp will once again hear arguments from both sides. At issue is whether or not assessed property under the La Jolla Maintenance Assessment District [MAD] would receive any special benefit “over and above that” received by the general public.\u00a0
\nIn her Nov. 30 ruling, Trapp stated, “The general public should not be required to pay for special benefits for the few, and the few specially benefited should not be subsidized by the general public.”
\nNoting the City felt it didn\u2019t get a fair shake the first time around, Mike Aguirre, of the law firm Aguirre & Severson LLP representing La Jolla landlords challenging the MAD, said, “All the City said was they wanted to hear the case over, asking for more time to argue the case in front of the original judge.”
\nA group known as La Jolla Benefits Association (LJBA), filed a lawsuit against the La Jolla MAD on Dec. 28, 2016, in San Diego Superior Court. The Association’s suit challenged the MAD, which passed by a 56 percent to 44 percent margin by mail ballot within La Jolla’s downtown Village in November 2016.\u00a0
\nNonprofit Enhance La Jolla was formed to lobby for the proposed MAD, and was sanctioned by La Jolla voters to administer the new MAD should it become operative.\u00a0
\n“Neither the MAD nor Enhance La Jolla, is a party to the suit,” said pro-MAD spokesman Bill Tribolet. “Certainly, our hope is that the City prevails in court, offering us the opportunity to make significant capital improvements in the Village.”
\nEnhance La Jolla has said the new MAD would privately fund and construct projects in public spaces, ensure ongoing maintenance services and enhance the Village’s beauty and quality of life. Enhancement projects could include sidewalk power washing, replacement of city-owned trash cans, weed abatement, landscaping improvements, graffiti removal and gutter sweeping.
\nFollowing are excerpts from filed city documents laying out its case for the MAD rehearing.
\n“Petitioner LJBA seeks to set aside formation of the MAD claiming: irregularities in voting establishing the district; city failure to identify the special benefits to property owners; and failure of the supporting engineer\u2019s report detailing\u00a0\u2018special\u2019 versus \u2018general benefits\u2019 to be provided by the new district.”
\nThe City is challenging the legal standing of LJBA in court documents stating, ” \u2026 there is no evidence that the lawsuit is timely or that it has standing to sue the city. The LJBA is a limited liability corporation formed \u2018after\u2019 the district was established that \u2018does not\u2019 own property within the district and \u2018does not\u2019 have the obligation to pay the district assessment. The law is clear that to challenge a revenue measure, a\u00a0petitioner must have actually paid, or be liable to pay the assessment at issue\u2026 The LJBA fails to meet either of these requirements.”\u00a0
\nAttorney Maria Severson representing LJBA said landlords are arguing the proposed MAD “does not provide special benefits, but rather, only dresses up the City Charter\u2019s mandated duty to provide special benefits. \u2026 The [MAD] district is really just a second tax on services the City is supposed to already be providing.”
\nSeverson said plaintiffs are “looking forward to the hearing so that we can highlight why the judge\u2019s [original] decision is correct.”
\nAguirre pointed out La Jolla property owners who paid their initial tax assessment for the new MAD at the start of the year, have since had their money refunded. He added March 29 may not be the final legal action, as the case could be petitioned to be heard by an appellate court.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On March 29, San Diego Judge Randa Trapp will once again hear arguments from both sides. At issue is whether or not assessed property under the La Jolla Maintenance Assessment District [MAD] would receive any special benefit “over and above that” received by the general public.\u00a0 In her Nov. 30 ruling, Trapp stated, “The general […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":257769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"La Jolla MAD in court once again: March 29 showdown to determine district legality","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}