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Court rules against AmCan candidate
By Times-Herald staff
Article Launched:11/01/2006 07:02:55 AM PST


A federal judge on Tuesday denied mayoral candidate Paul Maguire's application for a restraining order against the city of American Canyon.
The U.S. District Court in San Francisco turned down Maguire's request to block the city's enforcement of laws regulating the placement of political signs.

Maguire, who is running against council members Leon Garcia and Cindy Coffey, sued the city last month.

Magistrate Joseph Spero ruled Maguire had not adequately shown that enforcement of the laws was likely to cause him immediate, irreparable harm, or that he was likely to ultimately succeed on his claims that the laws were unconstitutional.

The judge said there was serious and important constitutional issues, and set a trial date for Feb 14th 2007. I filed the lawsuit not too long ago, and for a federal judge to give a trial date this quickly says that it is an important issue. Most civil cases take much longer to get a trial date.

The judge stated that there was harm, but the judge was not sure if the harm was enough to be irreparable, because it was not clear how many signs had been removed. Thus he stated he will not issue a temp restraining order at this time.

Finally, the judge was not pleased at all with the poor preparation of the city of AC council, and chastised him for being unprepared to argue all aspects of the case.

The transcript of the hearing is available through the court.

Correction The counsel (attorney) for AC. not the city council.