Two lawsuits Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed against Tulare County regarding approval of giant dairies have been settled. The county agreed to add an animal waste management element to its general plan and to complete a program EIR by the end of the year.
Under terms of a settlement reached in August, the Airosa Diary agreed to suspend its 3,600-cow expansion of a dairy near Pixley until the county completes the EIR and reviews the expansion. An October settlement of a second lawsuit places the same conditions on the Jongsma family, which received county approval for a 3,200-cow dairy near Earlimart earlier this year.
Lockyer filed the lawsuits because he contended Tulare County was not performing adequate environmental review of dairy proposals, which the county was approving based on mitigated negative declarations. (See CP&DR Local Watch, July 1999.) Tulare County is the number one dairy county in the nation, with more than 300,000 cows and about 20 applications for new or expanded facilities.
"This settlement is a good blueprint for addressing environmental review of diary projects," Lockyer said in a written statement. Lockyer, environmentalists and anti-poverty advocates fear that runoff from the giant dairies can pollute surface water and groundwater.
The wealthy City of Indian Wells will give $1.5 million in housing funds to the City of Coachella, a neighboring town where residents' median income is less than one-third that of Indian Wells' citizens. The money is a portion of the mandatory 20% housing set-aside from an Indian Wells redevelopment project, which transformed desert land into an upscale golf resort.
Indian Wells has spent $13.6 million in housing funds on 90 senior apartments and earmarked $14.6 million for 100 more senior units. The ...
The Fourth District Court of Appeal has sided with the County of Los Angeles in its tug of war with the City of Long Beach over the setting of base year property values in a redevelopment area.
The court concluded that the tax assessment role in place when Long Beach approved the redevelopment plan contained the base year property values. The court rejected Long Beach's argument that the base year values should reflect the lowering of some property values by the county's own Assessment Appeals Board.
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A landowner may sue the City of Huntington Beach for a temporary taking because of city delays in adopting a Local Coastal Plan and zoning for the property, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has ruled.
The city argued that the takings claim of the Mills Land & Water Company was not ripe because Mills never sought a final determination regarding the permissible type and intensity of development. But the appellate court ruled that "[t]he city had an obligation to get its LCP in place within a reason...
A Stanislaus County superior court judge appears to have cleared the way for housing construction at the controversial Diablo Grande development in the hills west of Interstate 5, near Patterson. Judge Donald Shaver said Stanislaus County may permit construction that would be served by water sources that have been "fully and adequately reviewed under CEQA."
Project proponents contend the Oct. 1 ruling allows them to pursue the first phase of the project, which amounts to 2,000 homes, two go...
An appellate court has blocked from the ballot an initiative that seeks to overturn a 1997 ballot measure that approved partial public financing for a new San Francisco 49ers football stadium and amended the city's zoning ordinance to allow the stadium and an adjacent shopping mall. (See CP&DR Economic Development, July 1997.)
Stadium opponents gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot an initiative that would overturn the 1997 measures. The 49ers sued and San Francisco Superior ...
Valery Pilmer, a former San Bernardino County land use services director, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of stealing a public document. Under the plea agreement with the county district attorney's office, Pilmer was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and retired from county employment effective October 15.
Pilmer was indicted earlier this year on four felony counts relating to hiding, altering or destroying public records and lying about it in a sworn statement. The charges stem f...
A 5,855-square-foot retail and office building proposed for downtown Mill Valley is exempt from environmental review under revised California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines, the First District Court of Appeals has ruled.
The court ruled that buildings of up to 10,000 square feet proposed for an urban area may be exempt from CEQA review. In the Mill Valley case, the court concluded that the project opponent did not prove the existence of any "unusual circumstances" that would preclude the exempti...
A six-year dispute between Shasta County and the new City of Shasta Lake regarding tax revenue has been decided in favor of the city.
The Third District Court of Appeals upheld nearly all aspects of a ruling issued during binding arbitration by retired Siskiyou County Superior Court Judge James Kleaver. The appellate court said the city, which incorporated on July 2, 1993, has the right to receive Proposition 172 sales tax revenue and that the Proposition 172 revenue should offset the amount the count...
Sonoma County has won the first round in its lawsuit over the state's 1993 shift of property taxes from counties and cities to school districts.
Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Laurence Sawyer ruled that the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) shift was unconstitutional because "the shift of local property taxes compels the counties to accept financial responsibility in whole or in part for a program that was required to be funded by the State." Fifty-three counties joined the lawsuit, whi...
The Proposition 218 requirement for public elections regarding property-based taxes does not apply to areas annexed into a jurisdiction that already has such taxes, according to an Attorney General's opinion.
The opinion issued in October by Deputy Attorney General Gregory Gonot says that a Local Agency Formation Commission may require that taxes levied by the jurisdiction be imposed on the newly annexed parcels, even though those landowners did not vote on the taxes. The proposition was not intended ...
Delays in constructing roads and utilities funded by Mello-Roos bonds do not absolve property owners of paying Mello-Roos assessments, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled in a recently published opinion.
In a case from Riverside County, the unanimous three-judge panel found that property owners have an obligation to bondholders that is independent of any dispute over how bond proceeds are used.
The County created Community Facilities District 88-8 under the Mello-Roos Community Faci
An initiative to prevent hotel and resort development on 60 acres of city-owned land in Sonoma passed with 77 percent of the vote during a Sept. 21 special election that attracted 59% of registered voters. A Mexican investor had proposed an upscale, 100-room resort for the hillside above Sonoma Plaza. Project opponents said they wanted to preserve open space and a scenic view.
