CP&DR -

Proposition 13: Convention Center Financing Dosen't Require 2/3 Vote

Sep 1, 1998

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

A joint powers authority created to finance the San Diego Convention Center expansion can issue revenue bonds without voter approval, the California Supreme Court has ruled. The $205 million bond issue was challenged in court by Richard Rider, a taxpayer activist who has frequently filed lawsuits against public agencies in San Diego claiming that two-thirds voter approval is required for financing public projects. Most famously, Rider won a state Supreme Court ruling that a sales-tax increase to ...

NEPA: 9th Circuit Rules Aganist Enviros in Two Cases

Sep 1, 1998

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

In the latest legal skirmishes associated with two ongoing natural resource controversies, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against environmental groups and in favor of the federal Bureau of Land Management. In both cases, the environmental groups sought to use the National Environmental Protection Act as a vehicle to gain legal leverage over BLM actions on the east side of the Cascades, and both included proposed land swaps between BLM and a private land exchange. In one case, t...

Local Ballots Will Contain Many Land-Use Measures; Ventura, San Diego Will Be Hotly Contested Counties

Sep 1, 1998

Ballot Measures, Featured Articles, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998, William Fulton

In a reversal of recent trends, ballot initiatives to restrict growth appear to be on the upswing - especially in Southern California, where few ballot measures have appeared in recent years. The hotbeds of controversy appear to be in Ventura and San Diego counties, which have historically had more "ballot-box zoning" than other parts of Southern California. In Ventura County, slow-growthers have mounted a coordinated November effort to pass urban growth boundaries in six cities as well as a voter ap...

Ballot Measueres: City Clerk Properly Rejected Signatures for Referendum

Sep 1, 1998

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

The Campbell city clerk acted properly in rejecting portions of a referendum petition it sought to place a major development project on the ballot, the Sixth District Court of Appeal has ruled. The case emerged from the city's decision last December to change the land-use designation on a parcel of land commonly known as the "Winchester Drive-In Site" to permit development of a research park proposed by WTA Technology Park, a developer. The city council voted to change 20 of the 24 acres to busine...

Sacramento County to Buy McClellan

Sep 1, 1998

Economic Development, Morris Newman, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento appears likely to make a strong transition to private industrial use. Sacramento County has decided to purchase some 2,400 acres - about two-thirds of the base - for $90 million, or almost $40,000 per acre. At the same time, Lockheed Martin Corporation has submitted a bid for a giant Air Force contract that would employ thousands of people on the industrial part of the property that the county plans to buy. McClellan is scheduled to close in 2001. The coun...

Feds Name California Brownfields Pilot Projects

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Economic Development, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

The cities of East Palo Alto and Los Angeles are among 16 cities nationally that have been named Brownfields Showcase Communities. At least 15 federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, took part in selecting the projects. The designation recognizes problem-solving on the part of local government, and entitles the projects to additional federal funding and/or in-lieu services. In addition to funding and in-lieu services, the desig...

The Power of Grid

Sep 1, 1998

Morris Newman, Places

Restraint is rarely touted as a virtue in urban design. Often, instructors in the History of Urban Design tend to treat the subject as a series of Greatest Hits - of grand interventions by such magnificently meddlesome people as Andre LeNotre or Baron Haussman or Robert Moses. Teachers in graduate seminars rarely show slides of, say, a Midwestern town and exclaim, "Look at how well the urban designers held themselves back!" The blockbuster mentality makes the current master plan of Mission Ba...

School Bond Includes Repeal of Mira; Builder Are Happy, Citties Aren't as Decade-Long Dispute Ends

Sep 1, 1998

Featured Articles, Timm Herdt, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

Ending a two-year political stalemate, the Legislature has placed a $9.2 billion education bond on the November ballot with conditions that would fundamentally change the way school construction is financed in California. Under the proposed reforms, local school districts would have to cover half the cost of new schools, and the state would suspend the ability of cities and counties to levy school fees in excess of state-mandated limits - a power granted by a series of appellate court decisions c...

Citrus Heights Settles with Sacramento County

Sep 1, 1998

Larry Sokoloff, Local Watch, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

A settlement has been reached in lawsuits between Sacramento County and the city of Citrus Heights over costs to be paid by the new city related to its incorporation. Citrus Heights incorporated in January 1997, and before incorporation had agreed to pay the county $5.6 million in installments for 25 years. That amount was the county's "profit" from taxes after paying for all services in the area during the period Citrus Heights was unincorporated. The new city was to pay a projected total of $14...

Newhall Ranch Plans Scaled Back

Sep 1, 1998

CP&DR Staff, Local Watch, Vol. 13 No. 09 Sep 1998

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has begun scaling back Newhall Ranch, a huge project that has been heavily criticized by neighboring Ventura County. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district contains the proposed project, introduced a motion in July to create more open space and possibly reduce the proposed 24,000 home development by 3,500 homes. The board approved the supervisor's motion that the county's staff should implement the proposed changes at its July 28 meeting. As approved by...

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 ...