A Fresno judge ruled on Fresno's upcoming election on privatizing trash service, better known as Measure G.
Fresno city manager Mark Scott filed a lawsuit as a private citizen, challenging the wording on the ballot.
Scott's attorney, Brian Hildreth, says the text was misleading. "The elections code prohibits false and misleading language from appearing in the ballot pamphlets and that's what we believe is happening here. That this language is false and misleading and cannot be permitted to appear in the ballot pamphlet," said Hildreth.
The judge agreed that some of the words Mark Scott had issue with needed to be changed while allowing others to remain.
Former Fresno County Supervisor Susan Anderson wrote some of the Measure G arguments and was named in the lawsuit. "We only have 300 words to put our argument in the sample ballot and then 250 in the rebuttal. So it's very difficult to condense a complicated issue into those number of words so we tried to be very careful about choosing our words."
The sample ballots for the special election will be mailed out on May 6th and then the election will be held on June 4th.
Fresno's mayor says outsourcing the collection of residential trash to Mid Valley Disposal will save the city money and is necessary to help balance the budget.
Those who oppose the deal say it will cost residents more money down the road and claim it was a legally questionable back-door deal.