Judge Grillo’s tentative ruling is against local autonomy, however, the Judge is in possession of the information he requested at the hearing and has not yet made a final ruling. Anticipation builds as to what the Superior Court will do…

On Fri­day Novem­ber 7, Alame­da Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Eve­lio Gril­lo issued a ten­ta­tive rul­ing deny­ing Peti­tion­ers’ request for the issuance of a writ of man­date halt­ing imple­men­ta­tion of the One Bay Area Plan in the mat­ter of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Bay Area Gov­ern­ments’ (ABAG) restruc­ture of local government.

On Mon­day Novem­ber 10, a hear­ing was held to dis­cuss this ten­ta­tive rul­ing. Peti­tion­ers’ coun­sel focused on the statu­to­ry require­ment that the Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ties Strat­e­gy be “fea­si­ble”. The def­i­n­i­tion of fea­si­ble includes the require­ment that green­house gas reduc­tion be achieved with­in a rea­son­able peri­od of time. In its brief­ing, ABAG nev­er pre­sent­ed a fea­si­ble plan nor addressed the issue of the tim­ing for their “Strate­gies” imple­men­ta­tion. Cur­rent­ly, ABAG mere­ly con­cludes the project is fea­si­ble despite the fact that their plan­ning con­sul­tant offered no evi­dence to sup­port ABAG’s con­clu­sion. ABAG recites a num­ber of new laws will have to be passed before the Plan can be ful­ly imple­ment­ed. This list includes gut­ting Propo­si­tion 13, the Cal­i­for­nia prop­er­ty tax lim­i­ta­tion enact­ed by vot­ers in the ’70s. Is that fea­si­ble? ABAG offers no timetable for a fea­si­ble plan designed to trans­form the Bay Area in accor­dance with the “Strate­gies” law itself.

Fur­ther, con­sid­er: ABAG’s judi­cial­ly rel­e­vant asser­tion that their fund­ing of One Bay Area (OBA) is 5% of fed­er­al fund­ing issued to this geo­graph­ic area. This per­spec­tive mis­leads the rel­e­vant fact that ABAG fund­ing of OBA totals 50% of all dis­cre­tionary fed­er­al pay­ments to this area! As a con­se­quence, cities and coun­ties are coerced into par­tic­i­pa­tion by the force of these lost dollars.

Read the Ten­ta­tive Rul­ing, Hear­ing Tran­script, Attor­ney Tim­o­thy Kas­souni’s Sup­ple­men­tal Brief, and more at:

 

GlobalizationOfCalifornia.com

Be sure to also read Kas­souni’s “Sev­en Rea­sons Why Plan Bay Area is Ille­gal & Bad Pol­i­cy for Cal­i­for­nia.”

 

The Glob­al­iza­tionOf­Cal­i­for­nia web­site has been redesigned. Be sure to check it out for infor­ma­tion on the law­suit, bill­boards, and the out­stand­ing con­fer­ence video The Glob­al­iza­tion of Cal­i­for­nia!

 

Stay tuned for more information on the lawsuit to Stop Regional Government! Understand how COGs (Councils of Governments) have reinvented American government. Then help save the country!

 

With­out warn­ing or notice, the IRS ter­mi­nat­ed Free­dom Advo­cates’ tax exempt sta­tus in 2013. How­ev­er, you can once again make tax deductible con­tri­bu­tions to Free­dom Advo­cates through our fis­cal spon­sor, the Edward Charles Foun­da­tion. Help expand the under­stand­ing of glob­al­ism and make an end of year con­tri­bu­tion to Free­dom Advo­cates. Click here or the but­ton below to donate. You can also make tax deductible con­tri­bu­tions by mail. Make checks out to ‘Free­dom Advo­cates’ and send to: Free­dom Advo­cates, P.O. Box 3330, Free­dom, CA 95019. Thank you!