The annual cost of a proposed regional housing bond has been revised upwards by hundreds of millions of dollars after objections to the calculation were raised by a coalition of Bay Area residents.
But the change wasn’t enough to stave off a lawsuit from the group, which had several other objections to the ballot question asking voters in the nine-county Bay Area to approve a $20 billion general obligation bond.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday against the regional agency behind the ballot measure, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, known as BAHFA. The suit alleges the agency made several missteps when it advanced the measure to the ballot, including the incorrect financial statements, writing too lengthy of a ballot statement, and using “fundamentally biased” language in favor of the measure.
The lawsuit identified nine instances of language the group wanted changed and likewise challenged the name of the measure appearing on the ballot, “Bay Area Affordable Plan,” as biased language. The formal name of the measure is “Regional Measure 4.”
The $20 billion bond will appear on the ballot in the nine Bay Area counties that are represented by the housing authority. It would be used to fund the development, construction and acquisition of affordable housing in the region, which is collectively under a state mandate to build more than 440,000 units by 2031.
A spokesperson for BAHFA said the authority’s Executive Board would have no comment on the lawsuit as the litigation is pending in court.
“How can the public trust an agency that can’t do basic arithmetic with nearly $50 billion of its taxes?”
Marc Joffe, plaintiff
The incorrect financial statements were acknowledged and corrected by the BAHFA Executive Committee at a special meeting Thursday. The projected annual cost was changed from $670,000,000 to $910,976,423. General counsel Kathleen Kane attributed the mistake to a math error.
“A mathematical error in the ballot question for Regional Measure 4 was pointed out to us,” Kane told the committee. “Upon investigation, we determined that that was correct, and we do actually need to fix the number.”
One of the plaintiffs in the suit, Marc Joffe, expressed incredulity at that explanation in a statement.
“How can the public trust an agency that can’t do basic arithmetic with nearly $50 billion of its taxes?” he said, referring to the cost of the bond measure including interest.
The suit was filed in Santa Clara County. If a judge agrees with the claims, the court could write the final language that appears on the ballot in November, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney Jason Bezis.
The measure would need 55% voter approval to pass if voters also approve Proposition 5, which would lower the threshold for certain local tax measures from 66.67%.
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