Burbank city leaders and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority have announced a new agreement that would lead to expansion of the crowded Burbank Airport and end a four-year legal battle.
The deal allows the airport to build a terminal nearly twice the size of the current terminal but retain the same number of gates — 14. The airport would close concessions and services from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily and phase out noisier Stage 2 jets. If the airport convinces federal regulators to approve a 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. flight curfew, the airport could add two more gates. Should the airport and city agree on a passenger limit, the airport could grow to 19 gates.
The Airport Authority in early August voted 5-2, with two members absent, to approve the plan. The Burbank City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the airport proposal for Oct. 19.
Almost immediately, airport expansion foes spoke of a referendum or a Burbank City Council recall because the plan does not mandate a night-time flight curfew.
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 ...
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 sa...
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.
In state Supreme Court action, the court declined to review a landfill EIR, and, in an unrelated case, the court said it will not decide a San Francisco hotel conversion case that had already been briefed.
In the landfill case, a Fourth District Court of Appeals decision to uphold an environmental impact report for the giant Eagle Mountain landfill in Riverside County will stand. Only two of the seven justices, Joyce Kennard and Ming Chin, voted to review the decision in National Parks & Cons...
The Fourth District Court of Appeals has denied the City of Anaheim's petition for rehearing in a case in which the court ordered Anaheim to approve permits for an adult cabaret.
The court did modify its opinion in Badi Abraham Gammoh v. City of Anaheim, 1999 Daily Journal D.A.R. 6685, (CP&DR Legal Digest August 1999), but the modifications did not alter the judgement against the city.
The court had ruled that Anaheim's actions in denying permits for Gammoh's Funtease theater did not pass ...
In an unpublished opinion, the Fourth District Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit over the November 1998 ballot measure approving financing for San Diego's new baseball stadium.
Ballpark opponents, led by former City Councilman Bruce Henderson, argued that the city should have prepared an EIR ahead of time, that the measure required a two-thirds vote, and that Proposition C should have specified that the city would incur $225 million of new debt. The unanimous three-judge panel rejected al...
The operator of a golf course on leased property was not entitled to compensation when a public agency condemned part of the property to accommodate a trolley line, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has ruled. The unanimous three-judge panel said the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) was correct when it compensated the owner of the real estate, not the lessee.
In renewing federal hydropower licenses, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission does not have to consider the hypothetical question of what the environmental conditions would be if the dams in question were never built, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The Ninth Circuit also ruled that while FERC must consider environmental concerns raised by the Interior and Commerce Departments, the commission has final discretion to address those concerns.
But in writing the unanimous ...
Members of a redevelopment agency's project area committee who own property within the project area do not have a conflict of interest that prevents their participation, according to an attorney general's opinion.
The opinion, written at the request of Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn, says that statutes and case law regarding project area committees makes clear that an exception is warranted to the normal conflict of interest rules.
Government Code § 1090 says government representati...
A streetlighting assessment district created prior to Proposition 218 is exempt from the tax-limiting initiative, the Fourth District Court of Appeals has decided.
The court held that the City of Riverside's Street Light Assessment District is exempt because it provides revenue to operate streets, which was a specific exemption in the 1996 initiative. The July ruling was a blow to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Paul Gann's Citizens Committee, two statewide organizations that ba...
An elementary school proposed for agricultural land is not subject to a Ventura County initiative intended to preserve farmland and open space, according to an attorney general's opinion.
A school district board of trustees, by a two-thirds vote, may exempt itself from local land use regulations, according to the opinion prepared by Deputy Attorney General Gregory Gonot. He quoted extensively from City of Santa Clara v. Santa Clara Unified School District (1971) 22 CalApp.3d 152, in which t...
Loretta Lynch, a San Francisco lawyer with solid Democratic credentials, is the new Office of Planning and Research director.
Gov. Gray Davis in mid-March named Lynch to the top job at OPR, which provides technical assistance to local planners and runs the State Clearinghouse for project review. The 37-year-old Lynch has been a partner in Keker & Van Nest since 1991, where she represented small and large companies in securities trading matters.
Lynch is a graduate of University of Southern California ...