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Councilmember McGovern said what she came to in talking with staff, reading the judge's decision, going back and looking at the conditions of approval and trying to see possibly how the judge made his determination is that this is aprecedent-setting situation for the referendum process not only in the City of Pleasanton but the State of California. She would have liked a specialized lawyer who deals with this process to have a look at this and give the City more of an open opinion about what could the outcome of this judge's decision be and what it could mean to cities in the future. She would have also have liked the Council to support the appeal so that we could have gone to the California League of Cities and to their advocacy lawyers to ask them to also look at this to see if there was some type of statewide precedent that would be set for cities, but staff and the Council does not know that on this level. One reason to appeal it is because if we believe the judge's decision is wrong, we should appeaN it. If the real parties were not appealing this decision, the City Attorney would have recommended the Council appeal it, and to her, this speaks volumes. He thought it was appealable and that he is glad that the real parties are appealing it. She felt the history of Pleasanton has always been that we stand up for what we believe in and we take the time and effort to get all types of petitions signed on issues that we think should be brought to the full public. She believed 5,200 signatures are significant, that we are the City we are today because of the referendum and initiative process, that there was a real ambiguity in the conditions of approval, as Condition 2 specifically talks about a development plan. She felt the judge picked that up and in his entire decision as it talks about the development plan not being attached, and there is no development plan. So I think that ambiguity was possibly due to the conditions of approval. Most important to her is to at least have this appealed so that it is clarifying to the City itself that the evolution of this Election Code has changed so much that now the text of the ordinance means something different and she wanted that clarity, but to get that clarity is a loss of time and money for the residents of Pleasanton. Also, as development agreements become more and more complex, to carry a petition with that much material is ludicrous. The barriers that are being placed with this judge's decision should be appealed and she felt the City should stand up because its name is on the lawsuit. Councilmember Sullivan said he originally supported the process and the project and now has come to another conclusion. The process itself was all about empowering the citizens of the community to participate in the decision-making process. One of his prime motivations was to involve the community in this project and hopefully come to something that is a compromise and that people could live with. At the same time end up with a benefit of open space to the community. He said he still believes in that vision and still thinks it can be achieved. When the project was referended and the petition qualified for the ballot that sent him a wrong message; that maybe the Council did not finish its job. When the judge disqualified the referendum based on a decision that, in his conversations with our City Attorney, was an incorrect decision and as somewhat ambiguous, that seemed to create a barrier to future referendum activities. Also, beyond the barrier or the lack of understanding that people have when they try to do this in the future, I felt it also sets up somewhat of a new paradigm that if it worked one time and people are successful in getting signatures, the next developer is going to turn around and sue to see if they will have the same kind of luck as they did at this project. To him the whole thing evolved into a much bigger issue than any single project and in going back to his original motivation in empowering the citizenry to be a meaningful part of this government's decision-making process, the fact that the judge throws the referendum out City Council Minutes 7 April 29, 2008