Bay Area Housing Authority pulls ballot measure after taxpayer lawsuit

The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, or BAHFA, on Wednesday unanimously withdrew a $20 billion regional housing bond from the Nov. 5 ballot less than a week after a pair of newly filed election lawsuits challenged the ballot measure and claimed the government underrepresented the costs of repaying the bond by $241 million annually.

The measure, known as Regional Measure 4, or RM 4, was originally set to provide roughly 70,000 affordable homes in the government's effort to "combat homelessness and improve housing affordability" across the nine Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma.

County election officials were named as respondents in the two lawsuits, which sought a writ of mandate challenging the "prejudicial" language found in the text of RM 4's ballot question and the government's ballot rebuttal argument respectively. Attorneys for the county officials confirmed the ballot measure's withdrawal at a status conference in Santa Clara County Superior Court hours after the BAHFA vote.

Jason Bezis of Law Offices of Jason A. Bezis in Lafayette, lead attorney for the petitioners in both cases, argued that the cases should not be declared "moot" given the lack of documentation filed with the court regarding RM 4's withdrawal and claimed that the elections officials "don't seem to be taking this proceeding very seriously."

Speaking in court on Wednesday, Bezis said "in the five or so years that I have been doing these election cases in several counties across California, this is the first case that I've come upon where I've had a first status conference, or an ex parte hearing, wherein there are no declarations that have been filed by any respondent county elections official."

He added that, "really there ought to have been something that had been filed about the deadline for at least one or multiple of these county elections officials."

In an email Wednesday, Bezis touted the withdrawal as a "victory" for his clients and referenced a pre litigation demand letter from Aug. 2 as a key moment leading to the withdrawal.

"These two lawsuits were instrumental in achieving that result. It's clear that our demand letter and ballot question lawsuit triggered a very embarrassing amendment of the ballot question, increasing the annual cost of RM4 by nearly a quarter-billion dollars," Bezis wrote.

The lawsuits called the wording of the ballot measure and rebuttal argument "untrue, partial, argumentative, and/or prejudicial" and sought a court order to amend and strike language from the texts. Among the sections highlighted in the lawsuits was the government's claim that the annual cost of repaying the bonds under RM4 would be $670 million.

Bezis wrote in one of the complaints that the actual costs to repay the bonds would be approximately $911 million annually. Rubin et al. v. Morales et al., 24CV444988 (Santa Clara Super. Ct. filed Aug. 9 2024); Khamis et al. v. Dupuis et al., 24CV444828 (Santa Clara Super. Ct. filed Aug. 8, 2024).

In Wednesday's joint new release announcing the withdraw of the bond measure Alfredo Pedroza, chair of BAHFA, and Belia Ramos, president of the Association of Bay Area Governments' Executive Board, called the decision "a wise choice" and emphasized that the two organizations would continue working to increase affordable housing in the Bay Area.

"BAHFA's commitment to a regional approach toward solving the Bay Area's housing affordability problems is stronger than ever," Pedroza and Ramos said. "When the climb toward passage of a regional revenue measure resumes, the Board looks forward to teaming with every one of the Bay Area's nine counties and 101 cities; and with the hundreds of other public, private and nonprofit partners who already have invested so much energy into this effort. Their work to prepare for a November bond measure, and the relationships built along the way, have laid a strong foundation for future success. Each step brings us closer to the summit."