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City Council April 15,2013 Page 3 plus pages of California statutes, is of no more relevance to the voters'intentions than the contrary definitions from the Building Code and elsewhere being touted by the "road is not a structure" proponents. There is no technical meaning of"structure" of material relevance to this City Council determination. 4. Harmonize with Existing Laws. Repeals of statutes by implication are to be avoided if any other rational construction of statutes may retain the status quo of the existing law. Birnie v. Permanerite Metals 192 F.2d 752 (and many other cases). The theory of repeal of a statute by inadvertence will not be considered, if another result may be reached by application of any rule of construction. Berger v. Hirni 50 Cal.App.2d 709. Similarly, State Planning Law requires that the General Plan be interpreted to maintain internal consistency between its elements. In this case, if Measure PP means a road is a structure, then the extensive planning processes undertaken by the City, including City sponsored neighborhood workshops, for the North Sycamore Specific Plan, and the Happy Valley Specific Plan will be reversed and repealed. An absolute prohibition of roads on 25% slopes means traffic from Lund Ranch II will not exit by Sycamore Creek Way as planned, and the by-pass road will not be allowed as planned. With the by-pass road, the City prevailed in litigation against Happy Valley residents by convincing the Judge that it would follow through with that by-pass road. An interpretation that Measure PP by implication repealed core principles of the Happy Valley Specific Plan and the North Sycamore Specific Plan would have to be rejected by a judge. The judge would notice that the more common meaning of structure respects those existing Specific Plans. If there was a contrary intention in Measure PP, then that result would have to have been explicitly disclosed to voters in plain English, and it was not. This canon of statutory construction weighs strongly in favor of the City Staffs recommendation that a road is not a structure. Conclusion The City Council has to interpret Measure PP consistent with established principles of statutory construction. Both the plain meaning of the word "structure", and the need to harmonize Measure PP with existing City Plans, direct that the City Council should adopt the Staff Recommendation and find that a road is not a "structure" under Measure PP. ruours, Douvei Peter MacDonald