Alan Lowe, the former candidate for mayor who sued the Palm Coast City Council over the proposed ballot referendum to loose the city’s restrictions on borrowing and leasing, dropped his lawsuit the day after the Nov. 5 election, which saw the ballot measure decisively defeated.
The ballot measure asked Palm Coast voters whether they would repeal a section of the city charter that limits the city’s authority to borrow (outside the utility and stormwater funds) more than $15 million or to enter into leases of longer than three years. The city may do either under the charter, but only if voters approve at a referendum. The proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot was to repeal that requirement.
Voters rejected the proposal by a 58 percent margin.
The election result makes the Lowe lawsuit moot in most regards. But one of Lowe’s attorney, Jay Livingston, had argued that the lawsuit was valid regardless of the results because it contested the way the council wrote the proposal. The lawsuit argued that the ballot language, its title and summary, were deceptive, misleading voters into thinking that they would be approving something without being told what that is. The ballot language never spells out that the proposal would repeal voter’s right to approve larger loans or leases.
But Circuit Judge Chris France ruled just days before the final Election Day (by which time the overwhelming majority of voters had already cast their ballot) that the title and the language was properly written. It was the voter’s duty, France ruled, to research the ballot proposal more extensively before getting into the voting booth. The judge rejected Lowe’s argument )or the argument Lowe’s attorneys proffered) that the ballot language was “hiding the ball.”
Lowe could have chosen to keep the lawsuit going, as one of his attorneys suggested would happen if the measure had passed, if only to appeal the judge’s arguments on the lawsuit’s merits. But an appeals court likely would have been inclined to reject the appeal simply by finding the question moot. And appeals are expensive. By voluntarily dismissing the lawsuit–which the city was fighting, having hired the GrayRobinson law firm to do so–Law signaled satisfaction with the Nov. 5 results, which have now complicated the city’s efforts to resubmit a similar, but clearer, proposal to voters at the next election. It is generally a losing proposition for local governments to attempt such political mulligans when the opposition can point to the recent result and say: voters have already spoken on the matter.
