In a surprise move, developers of the Lake Luciana golf course proposal are requesting that the county supervisors drop a rehearing and vote on the proposal even after the developers sued the county following a 3-2 vote in June to reject the proposal. The suit had charged that the county conducted a biased hearing and violated the Brown Act. -DB
October 31, 2009
By Jillian Jones
Napa County leaders are refusing to back down from a decision to re-do their vote on the Lake Luciana golf course proposal.
The Napa County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday, with Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht abstaining, to hold a new hearing on the championship golf course project proposed for Pope Valley.
The board will re-hear the project and vote again on Dec. 1, this time with Wagenknecht abstaining.
The re-hearing is meant to insulate the county from several legal claims made by developers in two separate lawsuits filed against the county and the board.
Lawyers for the Lake Luciana proposal charge that the board held a biased and procedurally flawed hearing in June when it voted 3-2 to reject the project. Among the allegations, developers claim that the board violated the Brown Act, a state law meant to ensure that government business is conducted in public view.
On Wednesday, Lake Luciana lawyer Mike Durkee formally requested that the board abandon plans for a re-hearing. He announced that Lake Luciana developers had dismissed the Brown Act charges, and he argued that the board no longer had any reason to hold a new hearing now that those charges were dropped.
Napa County Counsel Robert Westmeyer charged back Friday that the decision is not up for debate.
“It is puzzling that you and your clients would object to this (new vote), given that it provides the very relief that Lake Luciana seeks in its lawsuit,” Westmeyer wrote in a letter to Durkee on Friday. Namely, he said, the re-hearing will mean the June vote to reject Lake Luciana will no longer stand, and the project will get a new shot in front of the board.
Durkee scoffed at Westmeyer’s “feigned puzzlement about our reticence” to hold a new hearing.
“This whole thing’s a sham,” Durkee said. “It’s all a set-up to get to a 2-2 deadlock.”
Regardless, Westmeyer said, the decision to hold a new hearing “is not subject to petition for reconsideration”.
Meanwhile, Napa County Deputy County Counsel Laura Anderson is reminding people who commented on the project during the June hearing that they will have to speak again in December if they want their comments to count.