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Redevelopment—Padres win another round against ballpark foes



Redevelopment: Opponents Said to Be Interested Only in Delaying the Project

Opponents to the Padres ballpark were shut out in another legal round in their attempt to put the project on the ballot again.

The decision by the 4th District Court of Appeal filed Jan. 22 upheld a Superior Court decision last year that found a citizens’ initiative to overturn Proposition C was invalid.

Bruce Henderson, a former San Diego city councilman who wrote the initiative and served as attorney for petitioners Michael Dunkl and Philip Zoebisch, vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if the state Supreme Court either decided not to take up the case or upheld earlier rulings.

“This no longer has anything to do with a ballpark,” Henderson said. “It’s a question of free speech and the right to petition your government free from the threat of a lawsuit.”

In a legal twist, the petitioners were sued by both the city and the San Diego Padres soon after ballpark opponents launched their campaign to put the issue back on the ballot about a year ago.

The petition contended because certain requirements contained in the memorandum of understanding were not met, the agreement should be terminated.

The memorandum is the legal agreement between the city and the ballclub covering the ballpark’s construction, which was approved by nearly 60 percent of city voters in November 1998.

Assistant City Attorney Les Girard said both courts’ decisions support the city’s argument that an initiative was invalid because the petition challenged administrative acts taken by the City Council. Under state law, an initiative can only challenge legislative acts, not administrative ones taken after the law has been approved, he said.

Regarding Henderson’s vow to take his case to the nation’s highest court, Girard said, “Bruce’s only interest is in delay. He doesn’t care about the merits of the case. (Delay) is all he’s ever cared about.”

Construction of the Padres’ Downtown ballpark was halted last October when the city was unable to issue up to $299 million in bonds because of outstanding litigation and an ongoing investigation headed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office into stock transactions by City Councilwoman Valerie Stallings.

The legal defeat was No. 17 for Henderson on cases involving the ballpark at various court levels, but he said the city is counting the last case twice because of a separate suit filed by the Padres. In addition to the most recent case, Henderson is the attorney in four other cases challenging the ballpark.

“If I can get just one (victory), that’s all that would matter because any one of those can force it back on the ballot,” Henderson said.

Attorney Charles Bird from the San Diego firm of Luce Forward Hamilton & Scripps, the contracted private attorney on the case, said he didn’t know the exact number of court cases in which the city had prevailed, except that Henderson is “0-for-life.”

Of the most recent case, Bird said, “It is a thorough vindication of our position that we had taken all along, that the initiative was an outright frivolous effort to thwart the will of the voters by throwing a piece of junk on the ballot that would interfere with the bonding.”

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