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The Council is here tonight to decide whether or not the City will join the proponents, in this referendum, and this quest to overturn the Council's decision and his answer to that question is a resounding, "no way". The project is just too important to the community as a whole and what the City Attorney did was provide information that does not necessarily agree with the judge. Lastly, regarding the transparency of campaign financing, financing a campaign to gather public signatures from the public is covered by the same FPPC rules and regulations as any other political campaign. Everybody saw the eight newspaper ads and he is confident that it exceeded the thousand dollar threshold, but what bothers him more than anything is that some of the people that actually came down here and spoke when we were considering campaign finances as a Council issue are the same people who will not disclose where the campaign financing came from for the signature gathering process. To him this is a height of political hypocrisy. In summary, he supports the vision for the south Pleasanton Hills, the project has been fully vetted in a public process, and it's an important first step towards the accomplishment of the overall vision of achieving 2,000 acres of open space in the south Pleasanton Hills. Therefore, he will not support spending additional tax dollars to hire yet another consultant and will not support a mechanism designed to reverse a decision that was made by this Council in a 4-year public process. Councilmember Cook-Kallio said it is no secret that she is not a fan of the initiative of the referendum process. However, this does not mean she does not believe in the right to petition. The judges' decision was not prohibitive, she views it as being protective of the referendum process, and it is a caution that all legislative action or repeal of such action should be done in a deliberative manner. The judge did not mandate that all ancillary materials be available but just those that eliminate the ordinance, and in this case, not a prohibitive amount of paper. More importantly, she said it requires the citizens wishing to repeal an ordinance to read through the same information the Council read before making the decision, and have the pages that explain it available to others. The judge's ruling also is not predicated on the wrongdoings of the staff or the Council but is acknowledgement of the evolution of the planning process and the law. It is not unusual to have an honest difference of opinion between the judicial branch and slaw-making body. That is why we have a separation of powers and that is a check on us and in the other legislative branch. It's also a check on the citizens. The decision by the judge is not presidential except that it is a message to us to be more careful. However, the appeal may be, depending on how it's written. The real solution to this issue is legislative in nature. It's re-writing the statute in such a way that it is crystal clear. She said she spent a lot of time looking at the history of the referendum and the initiative process not only in California but also throughout the country and it is apparent that the process is not to be prohibitive but it is also not supposed to be easy. It is rarely used and is not meant to be totally reactive. She shares many of the same comments that Councilmember Thorne made, understands the concerns about the southeast hills and the size of the houses and the preservation of wild life and all those other things that were brought up, but of all signatures of the referendum, 89.3% of the voters did not sign it and her job is to balance those things and make the best decision and therefore does not think it is a cost that the City should bare financially. The greater cost here is not doing it right, she felt Council did it right and some agreed with it and some did not. City Council Minutes 6 April 29, 2008