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San Jose Mercury News A judge has rejected environmentalists' claim that Cisco Systems Inc. meddled in their referendum drive to overturn approval of the
networking firm's campus in Coyote Valley. In a two-page order issued by mail, Superior Court Judge Conrad Rushing refused a request by People for Liveable and Affordable Neighborhoods, or PLAN, for an injunction against
Cisco for lack of merit. "The court's decision was simple, clear and decisive," said Cisco spokesman Steve Langdon. "Their effort to prevent us from gathering signatures and sharing information about our campus
was rejected." PLAN officials said the order allows Cisco to sabotage their campaign. "We're disappointed because this means that Cisco is free to start again in an attempt to try to frustrate the referendum
process and make sure we fail," said PLAN coordinator Jerry Mailhot. PLAN last month began circulating petitions for a ballot initiative to overturn San Jose's approval of Cisco's 688-acre campus for 20,000 workers in
semi-rural Coyote Valley. The group contends the development will worsen traffic and housing. PLAN must collect at least 27,732 valid signatures from city voters by Tuesday to qualify the measure for the ballot.
The group last week alleged Cisco and its development partners tried to thwart their referendum drive by offering PLAN petition gatherers more money to gather signatures supporting the development instead. Circulators who
working for Cisco allegedly weren't allowed to also distribute the PLAN initiative. "What they are effectively doing is paying people not to do a referendum," Mailhot said. Cisco argued that both sides were
simply competing for a limited pool of professional petition circulators. Page last updated November 4, 2001. |
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