A Third Win for Fresno Voters: Appeals Court Rules City Alone Must Pay Legal Fees in Measure P Fight
Unanimous ruling holds City of Fresno alone responsible for Fresno BHC’s legal fees and rejects the City’s attempt to pay nothing; Fresno BHC calls on the City to put its full focus on parks .
FRESNO, CA — The people of Fresno won again today. The California Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District, ruled unanimously that the City of Fresno alone must pay the attorney fees from the years-long fight to uphold Measure P. A majority of Fresno voters approved the parks measure in 2018, only to have the City Council declare that it had failed.
This is the third time the Court of Appeal has ruled for Fresno Building Healthy Communities (Fresno BHC) in the fight over Measure P.
The first came in 2020, after residents and young people had spent years organizing the #Parks4All movement for more and better parks in every neighborhood. When 52.17 percent of voters said yes and the City refused to recognize the result, Fresno BHC went to court and won a landmark ruling that a citizens’ tax initiative needs only a simple majority. Measure P had passed. In 2023, the court ruled that the City was responsible for the legal fees it took to get there.
Today’s ruling settles who pays. A trial court had assigned 90 percent of the fees from the first phase of the case to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA), an outside group that joined the case to argue for a two-thirds vote. In practice, that left Fresno BHC with just a fraction of its fees for that phase, a cut of more than $200,000. The Court of Appeal reversed it. The City, meanwhile, had filed its own appeal arguing it should pay nothing at all. The court rejected that too.
What the court decided:
- The City can’t pass its bill to someone else. HJTA was not an “opposing party” under California’s private attorney general law, Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5. Its interest in the case was no different from that of like-minded members of the public, so none of the fee award could be assigned to it.
- The City’s new arguments came too late, and fell short anyway. The City raised four arguments for denying fees entirely. The court held that all four were forfeited because the City never made them in the trial court, and added that they would fail on the merits because the record does not support them.
- The responsibility is the City’s. The court reiterated that the City was responsible for the action that started this litigation: declaring Measure P failed based on its own reading of the California Constitution. The City could have changed its position at any point. It did not.
The court directed a new order awarding Fresno BHC a total of $530,890.67. Fresno BHC was also awarded its costs on appeal and may seek additional fees for this appeal.
“Fresno residents did everything right. They organized, they gathered signatures, they voted, and a majority said yes to more and better parks,” said Sandra Celedon, President and CEO of Fresno Building Healthy Communities.
“The City could have avoided all of this if it had focused on implementing Measure P instead of fighting to deny Fresno residents their right of initiative and their right to quality parks, arts, and trails. It should never have taken nearly eight years and three trips to the Court of Appeal for that vote to be respected.”
Time to focus on the parks
Measure P is a three-eighths-cent sales tax that funds park improvements and maintenance, new parks and trails, and recreation and arts programs. The need is still there. Fresno ranks 86th among the nation’s 100 largest cities on ParkScore, the Trust for Public Land’s rating of city park systems. Just 3 percent of Fresno’s land is used for parks and recreation, compared with a national median of 15 percent.
Park space is also not shared equally. According to the Trust for Public Land, residents of Fresno’s low-income neighborhoods have access to 36 percent less park space per person than residents of high-income neighborhoods.
Fresno BHC looks forward to the City devoting its full attention to bringing Fresno’s parks up to quality standards and raising the city’s ParkScore. For its part, the organization will turn to making sure Measure P dollars are spent the way voters intended.
“This was never about lawyers or fees. It was about young people and families who deserve the same quality parks as anyone else in this city,” Celedon said.
“Voters did their part. Now we look forward to the City putting its full attention on our parks, and we will be putting ours on how Measure P dollars are spent, so every neighborhood sees what voters were promised. That is the power of community, and it is how we build #OneHealthyFresno.”
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