As of yesterday, the court has reached no conclusion in the MROSD petition count appeal and the judge is continuing the hearing. So far, County Elections Manager David Tom has found 64 additional valid signatures, including those with only post-office-box addresses and those with residential addresses written in by a third party. Petitioners were about 640 short of the number needed to force an election in November.
I’m looking forward to getting some first-hand accounts of the hearing from the participants.
Well, (after previously telling Judge Forcum that July 22 was the deadline to make the ballot for the November general election), today the county proclaimed that August 6th was the real deadline.
After today’s judge then selected August 5, Ms. Woodward asked that the next court date be delayed to August 6th so she could save some money on some prepaid airline tickets for her family. The judge declined her offer and suggested that she parcel out the work to some of the other lawyers on her team, such as MROSD counsel and County counsel.
These are my notes regarding the subsequent dialog…
Judge: Ms Woodward (LAFCo attorney), you might want to also consider the fact that you were asking County Counsel to help you out in your examination of (the director of the elections department) Mr Tom; How should that bear on my analysis here about the objectivity of the County Elections department on deciding the outcome of the protest petition?
Woodward (stunned) Your honor, I’m not sure I understand the question.
The Judge: I think I’ve made my point.
Another ironic moment was when Mr Tom testified that the only decision he had made was to certify 64 additional protests. He was apparently unable to comprehend that his decision to not certify any of the other protests was also a decision.