DiQuisto v. County of Santa Clara, No. H032345

In plaintiff-taxpayers' action against a county and its Board of Supervisors and city officials claiming that the county improperly spent public funds for partisan electoral purposes by bargaining for the unions' non-support of the initiative measure to mandate binding arbitration, trial court's judgment in favor of the defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs' arguments that the county violated Stanson in bargaining with the unions about support for the binding interest initiative is rejected as the county did not expend public funds to promote a partisan position in an election campaign; and 2) the supervisor's email did not violate Stanson as substantial evidence supports the determination that the text of the email was informational and any expenditure in preparing and distributing the email with its attachment was minimal. 

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Appellate Information

Filed January 25, 2010

Judges

Opinion by Judge McAdams

Counsel
For Appellant:   Wylie, McBride, Platten & Renner; John McBride, Christopher E. Platten, Mark S. Renner, Clisham & Sortor; David P. and Clisham, Law Offices of Donald T. Ramsey and Donald T. Ramsey

For Appellee:   Ann Miller Ravel, County Counsel, Miguel Marquez, County Counsel, Winifred Botha, Assistant County Counsel, Gregory J. Sebastinelli, Deputy County Counsel, Crowell & Moring; Ethan P. Schulman, Michael Y. Kao