A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Councilmember Sharon Barovksy was ineligible to run for the council race this April because of the city’s two-term limit law.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
With the ballot for the April election heading to the printer on Friday, it is still unclear whether Councilmember Sharon Barovsky’s name will appear on it. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled Friday that Barovsky is not an eligible council candidate, because, Janavs said, Barovksy would be running for an illegal third term. Then, on Monday, a three-judge panel from the California Court of Appeal said it would hear arguments for the case on Wednesday.
Usually an appellate court does not hear an item until nearly a year or more after the trial court ruling. But City Attorney Christi Hogin sent a petition to the Court of Appeal early Monday morning requesting that the process be accelerated because of the need for the issue to be settled prior to ballot being printed. Later that day, the court issued a statement that Janavs should either reverse her decision or appear at the appellate courthouse on Wednesday to explain why she should not do so.
It is highly unlikely that Janavs will reverse her ruling or actually appear before the appellate panel. Rather, Hogin will appear before the court to argue the city’s case and Frederic D. Woocher, who represents a group of residents led by former Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan that has claimed Barovsky is not an eligible candidate, will appear on behalf of his clients.
The appellate panel will probably take one of three actions this week. It could decide to affirm Janavs’ decision. It could overturn her ruling. Or it could decide it wants to hear the case as a regular appeal, and the lawsuit would go before the court approximately a year from now. In that situation, Barovsky would remain on the ballot. And if she were elected, she could be removed from office if the appellate court decided she was not an eligible candidate.
Barovsky’s candidacy was in question because city law limits council members to two terms and the citizens group argued that Barovsky would finish her second term this year because she served a partial term from 2000 to 2002 prior to being elected to a full term. One of the group’s arguments, which Janavs used in her ruling, focused on an impartial analysis by then-interim City Attorney Richard Terzian of the term limits measure that voters approved in 2000. Terzian wrote in the analysis, which appeared on the ballot, that a partial term counts as a full term.
Hogin said this week that it was important for the city to appeal Janavs’ decision.
“The way that Carrigan is insisting that the [term limits] ordinance be interpreted would mean that we would have a lot of difficulty getting people to step up to the plate and run for partial terms in the unusual circumstance that a council member dies or resigns,” Hogin said.
Carrigan said he did not understand why people would be hesitant to run for partial terms because of Janavs’ ruling. He further stated that he did not believe Hogin should be continuing to defend this case.
“It does disturb me,” Carrigan said. “For whom is the city attorney working? She is being paid out of taxpayer funds to help Barovsky disregard the voter’s intent [when it approved the term limits law in 2000] and run for an unauthorized third term.”
Carrigan continued, “I was surprised and shocked that an appeal was filed. Christi Hogin appears to be working as Mrs. Barovsky’s attorney. And I think at some point spending taxpayer money for this becomes inappropriate.”
Barovsky said Carrigan’s argument was silly.
“He sued the city,” she said. “He didn’t sue me. The suit is against the city. The city has to defend itself. And the city attorney represents the city. She doesn’t work for me.”
A few residents contacted The Malibu Times asking how Hogin could file the appeal without receiving City Council direction to do so. There was no council meeting since Janavs’ ruling was issued and another meeting is not scheduled until Monday. Hogin said she could have scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the issue, but felt that was unnecessary because she was taking an action to protect the city’s legal position.
“I’m not like a waitress where I come and take their [the city council’s] order and go and get it,” Hogin said. “I have a responsibility, generally speaking, to take action that is in the city’s best interest.”
Hogin said those who were complaining about her involvement in the suit had unfairly created the situation.
“They sue the city,” she said. “They wait until after the nomination period to file a suit based on some latent defect, some hidden passage in a six-year-old voter pamphlet that nobody has seen in six years, and then complain when the city defends its law.”
Carrigan responded that he only filed the suit after the nomination period was over because that was when City Clerk Lisa Pope announced that Barovsky was an official candidate. Carrigan said he could not file the suit before that, because he could not sue the city over whether Barovsky’s name should appear on the ballot if the city had not yet officially said it intends to put her name there.