The annual cost of a proposed regional housing bond was revised upward by hundreds of millions of dollars last week after a coalition of Bay Area residents objected to the calculation.
But that change was not enough to avert a lawsuit from the group, which had several other objections to the ballot question asking voters in the nine-county Bay Area to approve a $20 billion general obligation bond.
The lawsuit was filed on August 7 against the regional agency behind the ballot measure, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. The suit alleges the agency made several errors in submitting the ballot measure, including false financial statements, an overly long ballot statement and the use of “fundamentally biased” language in favor of the measure.
The lawsuit identified nine places where the group requested changes in language and also challenged the name of the measure appearing on the ballot, “Bay Area Affordable Plan,” as biased language. The measure’s official name is “Regional Measure 4.”
The $20 billion bond will be put to a vote in the nine Bay Area counties represented by the housing authority. It will be used to finance the development, construction and acquisition of affordable housing in the region, which is mandated by the state to build more than 440,000 housing units by 2031.
A BAHFA spokesman said the agency’s board could not comment on the lawsuit because the litigation was still pending in court.
The erroneous financial statements were acknowledged and corrected by the BAHFA Executive Committee at a special meeting on August 8. The projected annual costs were reduced from $670,000,000 to $910,976,423. General Counsel Kathleen Kane attributed the error to a miscalculation.
“We were made aware of a math error on the ballot question for Regional Measure 4,” Kane told the committee. “After investigating, we determined that was correct and we do indeed need to correct the number.”
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Marc Joffe, expressed his disbelief at this explanation in a statement.
“How can the public trust an agency with nearly $50 billion in taxes that can’t even do simple math?” he said, referring to the cost of the bond, including interest.
The lawsuit was filed in Santa Clara County. If a judge agrees to the demands, the court could determine the final language that appears on the ballot in November, according to plaintiffs’ attorney Jason Bezis.
The measure would require 55% approval of voters to pass, provided voters also approve Proposition 5, which would lower the threshold for certain local tax measures from 66.67%.
— Story by Thomas Hughes, Bay City News Service
