The name of Wildomar resident Gerard Ste. Marie has appeared for the fourth time since 2004 in the Riverside County Superior Court in another lawsuit concerning Wildomar interests.

On July 9, Ste. Marie filed a lawsuit against the eight-day-old city to force the council to divide the community into districts and hold elections for two council seats in the Nov. 4 general election.

Wildomar voters approved Measure C to incorporate and Measure D to carve the community into separate voting districts and elected five inaugural City Council members – Sheryl Ade, Bob Cashman, Scott Farnam, Bridgette Moore and Marsha Swanson – on Feb. 5.

The inauguration and swearing-in ceremony was held July 1.

Reaction from longtime community activists to the latest legal challenge was swift and unequivocal. "It’s bizarre that anyone would expect we would have another election just five months after the incorporation," commented Ade.

In a July 2 e-mail/letter to the council members and interim City Attorney Julie Hayward Biggs, Ste. Marie asked Biggs to respond by July 7 and confirm whether districts would be in place by the July 14 deadline in time for the November election.

In her July 7 reply, Biggs replied the next municipal election for Wildomar would be held in 2010, when the three councilpersons who received the least amount of votes would be up for reelection, because the next statewide election falls during the same year as the incorporation, according to her interpretation of state law.

Former council candidate Steve Beutz served the lawsuit upon Biggs, Mayor Cashman and Councilwoman Swanson after the July 9 city council meeting.

In a phone interview, Biggs reiterated her interpretation of California government code 57379, which, she cites, controls the scheduling of municipal elections after an incorporation such as Wildomar’s.

It reads: if the first general municipal election following an incorporation election will occur less than one year after the date of incorporation, and less than one year after the incorporation election, of the five elected members of the city council, the three receiving the lowest number of votes (Ade, Farnam and Swanson) shall hold office until the second general municipal election following the incorporation election (Nov. 2010) and until their successors are elected and qualified.

Additionally, the two receiving the highest number of votes (Cashman and Moore) shall hold office until the third general municipal election following the incorporation election (Nov. 2012) and until their successors are elected and qualified.

Dimitri Reyzin, the attorney for Ste. Marie, disagrees with Biggs and says California government code 57378 is the governing statute.

It reads: when an incorporation is approved and voters also approve to vote by district in future elections, an election must be held at the next regular municipal election.

Reyzin says the council is under a duty to draw district boundaries by July 11 to meet the nomination deadline for potential council candidates to run for the two council seats with the lowest amount of votes cast during the Feb. 5 incorporation election (Ade and Farnam) in the Nov. 4 election.

The terms of office for Swanson, Moore and Cashman would expire at the second general municipal election after incorporation.

The city council is obligated to respect the community’s decision to select city council members by district and hold an election this November, Reyzin said in a phone interview Tuesday.

"The problem with the city’s position is that they think they don’t have to do anything until 2010," he said, referring to public comments made by council members and the interim city attorney during recent council meetings.

He said some city council members have already indicated publicly that they want to put the issue of whether the community should be divided into districts to the voters again and bypass the first vote.

"If you don’t take action now," said Reyzin, "you jeopardize your rights. You have to do it at some point."

The debate over whether a community should be divided into districts, with the exception of the lawsuit, is a case of déjà vu for Biggs. She represented the city of Goleta after its identical decision to vote for council members by district at the time of its successful incorporation vote in 2001.

"The basic problem is all the statutes have to be read together," explained Biggs. "When you vote to create a new city, you don’t have an election in its first year."

After the 2001 mandate from voters to elect one council member from each voting district in the city, Goleta hired an electoral Advertisement

Tenkobushi district consultant to create several boundary maps and held forums to get feedback from the community.

The Goleta City Council also decided to put the issue of whether the community should be divided into voting districts in the 2004 election.

The district maps were ready to be implemented if the voters in Goleta decided to elect a council member from each separate district. Instead, the community changed its mind and decided to select prospective council members from the community at-large rather than by district.

The general consensus among the conflicting interpretations of state election laws, according to both attorneys, is that each position is incompatible with the other.

Ste. Marie has alleged the election for the two council seats should take place on Nov. 5, while the city maintains the election should occur in 2010. There is no middle ground.

Brewing on the backburner is the question whether the Wildomar council will decide to ask voters to revisit the issue of electing council members by district in the future.

Councilwoman Ade feels the issue should be reexamined by the voters.

"If you look to the intent of the law, it was meant to allow representation for diverse socioeconomic groups within a large community," she said by e-mail. "It was not intended for small communities [like Wildomar] with staggered elections."

Biggs said she is preparing to discuss the issue of voting by district and election timelines at the Aug. 11 city council meeting.

This is not the first legal challenge Ste. Marie has filed scrutinizing the fiscal and legal viability of decisions regarding Wildomar, although this is the first lawsuit he has filed using an attorney.

The first three lawsuits were filed by Ste. Marie representing himself. His detailed oversight of Wildomar has met with varying results.

In 2004, he successfully challenged the sale of 80 acres along Clinton Keith Road by the county of Riverside to the Mt. San Jacinto Community College district to build a satellite campus.

He argued the county failed to follow proper procedures for the sale of the Wildomar property to the community college district.

The case was appealed by the county last December and is awaiting review by the California Supreme Court this summer.

On May 14, 2007, Ste. Marie paid a $25,000 fee deposit by two personal checks to ask the California state controller’s office to review the comprehensive financial analysis for the proposed city of Wildomar.

The required 45-day review automatically pushed the question of cityhood from last November’s election until Feb. 5 of this year. The state ultimately affirmed the financial outlook for the new city.

Ironically, Ste. Marie’s request and the requisite delay nudged the projected revenue sources into the next fiscal year and increased the flow of money into the city coffers.

A few months later, Ste. Marie disputed the legality of a resolution passed by the county board in July 31, 2007, in a lawsuit filed against the Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Halloween 2007.

He questioned the fiscal survival of the proposed civic independence of both the city of Wildomar and the neighboring community of Menifee without financial help from the county for the next 10 years.

He categorized the county’s decision as an "illegal gift of public funds" in violation of the California Constitution, according to his legal documents. Menifee residents voted to incorporate in the recent June election.

The county’s resolution to transfer the monies saved when the cities of Wildomar and Menifee incorporate is perfectly legal, county counsel Joe Rank said in a phone interview.

"Our assumption is what we did was valid and proper," he said.

The state controller audit of Wildomar’s feasibility study confirmed one of the main issues raised by Ste. Marie’s litigation that the county board of supervisors has the authority to assist any government agency within its sphere of influence.

"The state controller’s office said it looks fine to us, thank you very much," said Rank. "Someday we will find out what [Ste. Marie’s] motivation is."

Ste. Marie’s suit against the county suffered a legal setback on June 27 when his motion to prevail as a matter of law was denied. The case will continue.

On May 27, Ste. Marie filed suit against the county of Riverside Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) asking for a court determination whether the agency’s decision on Aug. 23, 2007, to allow residents to vote on the incorporation of the new city of Wildomar was legally sound.

The lawsuit against LAFCO is also winding through the court system.