Judge Set To Throw Out City's Suit To Stop La Jolla Independence Push

By Scott Lewis, the Voice of San Diego

October 24, 2025

A Superior Court judge has tentatively ruled the city of San Diego’s lawsuit trying to stop the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, violated the state’s anti-SLAPP laws and should be thrown out. The site lajolla.ca was first with the news.

The ruling is here.

Background: The Association for the City of La Jolla submitted signatures to start the process to make La Jolla its own city. If they got enough signatures, it would trigger LAFCO to commission an analysis of what the financial impact of such a split would be and how much alimony La Jollans would have to pay.

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LAFCO contracted with the county Registrar of Voters to validate the signatures. The registrar did that and reported that they didn’t get enough signatures. But then LAFCO Executive Officer Keene Simonds determined the registrar invalidated many of the signatures for simple misspellings or for using common abbreviations that didn’t exactly fit the registrar’s assumptions. He decided there was enough signatures after reviewing many of the ones thrown out.

The city sued arguing Simonds had no right to do that and the registrar’s count should stand. The city named the Association for the City of La Jolla as a party of interest.

In the meantime, the registrar quietly updated its guidance after a separate Court of Appeal ruling that it had been way too stringent on simple misspellings or common address abbreviations.

The Association filed an anti-SLAPP motion arguing the city was trying to impede its rights to participate in public process. The judge appears to agree.

“Substantial evidence indicates Simonds did not act arbitrarily when he exercised his authority to determine the ROV improperly rejected signatures due to minor mis-spellings and/or non-standard abbreviations …” reads the tentative ruling from Judge Judy S. Bae.

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