CP&DR -

Courts May Use Discretion in SLAPP Atorney Fees

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Trial judges may use their discretion in determining whether to award attorney fees to SLAPP suit defendants if the plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the case while the anti-SLAPP motion to strike is pending, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In making the ruling, Division 2 of the Fourth District rejected the argument that defendant's attorneys should be either automatically entitled to or automatically precluded from receiving such fees. The term "SLAPP" suit - the acronym stands f...

Endangered Species Act: Tribe Not ‘Indispensible' In Species Lawsuit

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Reversing a district court judge's ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that a Native American tribe is not an "indispensable party" in an environmental group's endangered species lawsuit against the federal government. The case involved the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuit challenging the federal government's plan to use more water storage capacity behind Roosevelt Dam in Arizona. The group claimed that the government had not done adequate analysis of ...

NEPA: Forest Service Analysis of Fire Risk Found Adequate

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The U.S. Forest Service's supplemental environmental impact statement for a timber sale in the State of Washington was adequate, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The case involved the Forest Service's decision to add to the sale more than 1,000 trees that were damaged by a fire. Several environmental groups sued, claiming the supplemental EIS did not adequately cover the environmental issues associated with this additional sale. But the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Forest...

LAFCO: Gold Rush City Critics Lose Appellate Ruling

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

A California appellate court has affirmed that the Sierra Club and other environmentalists did not exhaust their administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit to challenge the San Joaquin County Local Agency Formation Commission's annexation of the Gold Rush City property to Lathrop. However, the appellate court justices said that they consider the rule on which they based their decision "outmoded" and urged the California Legislature or the California Supreme Court to overturn it. Gold ...

Developer Suit Aganist Own Consultant Not SLAPP

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Reversing a trial judge's ruling, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that a development company's lawsuit against its own engineering firm is not a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - a so-called SLAPP suit - within the meaning of the state anti-SLAPP law. It is one of the few instances in which an attempt to use the state anti-SLAPP law has failed in the appellate courts. SLAPP suits are often filed by developers against citizen groups or others who speak out against their...

Farmers Support Anti-Sprawl Measures

Aug 1, 1998

Local Watch, Timm Herdt, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Reports on the need for farmlands preservation in the urbanizing Central Valley have become nearly as commonplace as tract homes in Fresno. But when a high-powered group of valley farmers released their own report last month, the reactions indicated that this one might carry more weight than the rest. The California Building Industry Association, sensing the potential loss of a sometime ally in the valley's land-use wars, condemned the report as "alarmist rhetoric". And the head of a environmenta...

Zoning: Court Reverses Ruling Aganist San Diego in Sex-Club Case

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The city of San Diego did not prosecute the owner of a sex club maliciously or selectively even though the city made a series of mistakes in granting him zoning approvals and then prosecuting him, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Reversing a district court jury's decision, the three-judge panel concluded that the city did not violate Elbert Poppell's civil rights and that Zoning Administrator Sharren Carr should not be held personally liable because she was acting in a professio...

Blight Finding Overturned: Murrieta's Plan Not Supported by Evidence, Court Rules

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The City of Murrieta's was wrong to declare 3,500 acres of land blighted in order to create a redevelopment project area, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled. In a lawsuit brought by the Riverside County government, the Fourth District found that the property is not "predominantly urban" nor is "blighted," both of which are required in order to create a redevelopment area. With the exception of 200 acres of vacant county land that was withdrawn, the area in question "has been depicte...

Coastal Commission Case Remanded

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The California Supreme Court has remanded one takings case against the Coastal Commission to the Second District Court of Appeal, in Los Angeles, to be reconsidered in light of the high court's decision in another takings case against the Coastal Commission. In Coastal Commission v. Buckley, No. B081544, the Second District reversed a $2.1 million takings award against the California Coastal Commission, saying that the evidence on the record does not establish that the Commission's actions against a s...

Locals Get Standing in EIS Challenge

Aug 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Legal Digest, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Local governments in Nevada do have the standing to intervene in a lawsuit against the Interior Department, challenging the environmental impact process on a proposed water rights acquisition program, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The case involves the Interior Department's attempt to implement a water rights acquisition program designed to settle complex and longstanding water rights issues associated with the Newlands Reclamation Project in western Nevada. Under Section 206 of t...

Can We Restore Civic Health by Measuring It?

Aug 1, 1998

Stephen Svete, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

In this time of widespread prosperity and record consumer confidence, it's hard to swallow the notion that, as a society, we may be on the wrong track. But that's exactly the thesis that a report by the new National Commission on Civic Renewal supports. Sure, crime rates are down from the early 1990s, and school test scores have edged upward from their nadir in the mid-1980s. But a far-reaching statistical evaluation presented in the Commission's recent report "A Nation of Spectators" suggests that ...

State Urges Policing of Land-Based Securities; Waterford City Attorney Faces Charges

Aug 1, 1998

Featured Articles, Morris Newman, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

The current system of regulating municipal securities, including Mello Roos and Marks Roos bonds, is "inadequate" and "encourages non-compliance", according to a new report a state task force. Noting the alarming rate of defaults among land-based securities, the report recommends creation of a new municipal bond law-enforcement division within the state's department of justice. The findings and recommendations have been praised by both government officials and some industry observers, although at...

Another Big Deal in Long Beach

Aug 1, 1998

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

Four years is a long time in most life situations. In four years, a child can learn to walk, talk, and become a social being. A stand of bamboo can grow 20 feet. The governor of California can serve out a complete term, and a pair of flies can generate several billion offspring. But in the glacial pace of planning, four years is the blink of an eye. That's why the completion of the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific in the City of Long Beach is such a notable accomplishment. After a public investment...

Battle Over Dam in Monterey

Aug 1, 1998

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 13 No. 08 Aug 1998

For twenty years, water planning on the Monterey Peninsula has been in a stalemate, as local voters have turned down proposals to increase the water supply in the region. Now, a bill moving through the legislature may finally bring resolution to the matter - or complicate things further. The bill, AB 1182, by Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Santa Cruz, would require a special election to choose between either building a dam on the Carmel River or moving forward with a plan developed by the Public Util...