By Khalida Sarwari
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch today denied a temporary restraining order requested by opponents of a measure to extend Bay Area Rapid Transit to Santa Clara County.
The last-minute lawsuit seeking a manual recount of 10 percent of the voting precincts for Santa Clara County’s Measure B was filed by the nonprofit Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund.
Measure B authorizes a one-eighth-cent sales tax to fund a 16-mile BART extension from Fremont to San Jose.
Initially, the suit against Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Jesse Durazo and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, but the case was moved to San Francisco.
The measure required two-thirds support to pass and garnered 66.78 percent of the vote on the Nov. 4 ballot. Opponents argued that the .11 percent margin was slim enough for a manual recount to be required.
The verdict came as somewhat of a shock to TRANSDEF president David Schonbrunn.
“I was completely confident we were going to win because it is the right thing to do,” Schonbrunn said.
Santa Clara County Deputy County Counsel Susan Swain, however, was relieved.
Commending Busch’s decision, Swain said that she was happy to save taxpayers the money that would have gone into the recount process.
“(Busch) indicated he had questions about the time limits of when the complaint was filed,” Swain said.
Santa Clara County was required to certify its election results by 5 p.m. today. Despite today’s scheduled court hearing, which could have resulted in an order blocking them from doing so, the county went ahead this morning and certified the results.
Swain said the request for the manual tally did not come early enough.
“They filed it literally a day before the certification was to be completed,” Swain said. “They were leaving us with an impossible task.”
Schonbrunn hinted that the certification was rushed to beat the court hearing.
“By certifying election results before the hearing, they have denied the dignity it deserves, rather than taking the constitution seriously,” Schonbrunn said. “We’re not happy that the county tried to
outmaneuver us.”
Schonbrunn said that while TRANSDEF will consider its options in the coming days, he did not know of any immediate action that would be taken.
Swain expressed doubts about Measure B opponents’ chances, stating “courts are reluctant to overturn the votes once the voters have spoken.”
The certification of Measure B will allow the $6.1 billion project to go forward, with an expansion from Fremont through Milpitas, San Jose and Santa Clara, adding six stops to the line. The project is scheduled to be completed as early as 2017.
