At last, a property rights ballot initiative is making the rounds in California. But the initiative begs the question: Is there still a property rights movement in this state?

What began as an effort to prevent desecration of Native American sacred sites morphed this spring into a profound change in California's mining regulations, a change potentially so costly to mine operators that industry representatives predicted it would bring an end to one of the state's signature commercial activities: Gold mining.

San Francisco International Airport officials will celebrate the opening of a new Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train connection this month while lamenting the delay of an unrelated plan to expand runways.

An environmental impact report for a dairy in Madera County has survived a challenge from an organization that fights dairy expansion in the Central Valley. The Fifth District Court of Appeal rejected arguments that the EIR's handling of endangered species issues, project alternatives and cumulative groundwater impacts was inadequate.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has turned back a San Diego developer's broad attack on the Endangered Species Act as an unconstitutional exercise of federal power. Rancho Viejo LLC argued that the federal government had exceeded the authority granted to it by the constitution's Commerce Clause, and the developer pointed to two recent Supreme Court decisions striking down laws because they exceeded Congress's authority under the clause.

Like the lonely woodcarver Geppetto in the story of Pinocchio, boosters of "town centers" hope that the instant shopping streets will be accepted as the genuine article.

California is a state characterized by big development projects. Some get built, and some don't. But simply the proposal of a huge project can be enough to start a political movement.

Throughout the high-stakes poker game that coastal cities and a giant irrigation district have been playing for the past seven years in the California desert � with a rich pot of Colorado River water the prize � the Salton Sea has been a peripheral presence, like a high-roller's mistress standing just outside the glare of the lights. But events earlier this year suggest that the ecologically ailing drainage sump at the heart of the Imperial Valley has really been manipulating the game all along.

Despite a sluggish California economy, the state agency charged with business development and job creation appears to be in for a substantial downsizing.

A developer's lawsuit that claimed the San Diego Unified Port District and one of its commissioners conspired to kill the developer's proposed waterfront project has been thrown out as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's decision to remove a special master who had been appointed to oversee redevelopment of an industrial site in Union City. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a court order capping the former special master's compensation and ordering him to repay $113,000.

A 2002 appellate court decision that subjected a proposed water treatment plant to local zoning and building ordinances appears to be on shaky ground.

While it might be hard to convince some of my left-leaning brethren of the case, the forthcoming auction of El Toro will likely benefit the local community, the military and private business, in that order. The City of Irvine, not known to be a pushover on matters relating to the former Marine Corps base, seems just short of ecstatic about the arrangement.

Major efforts are under way to provide money to upgrade and expand infrastructure in California, but even some backers of the funding proposals appear skeptical that state lawmakers will approve anything major this year. There are two approaches in Sacramento these days. One would make it easier for local government to raise revenue by reducing the two-thirds voter requirement for special taxes and local bonds. The second approach relies on state bonds.