Norman La Force
Following a favorable ruling for Point Molate advocates last September, a U.S. federal court issued a second ruling late last week against the City of Richmond that will allow a citizens’ lawsuit against the city for violating the Brown Act to move forward.
Petitioners SPRAWLDEF, Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP), and four Richmond residents sued the city for violating the Brown Act when it cut a secret deal ignoring California’s open government laws in regard to development at Point Molate, the historic and ecologically rich peninsula at Richmond's western shoreline. It is that secret deal that is at the heart of the city’s present plan to sell off its publicly owned Point Molate headlands to a controversial Southern California-based real-estate corporation.
In their latest failed attempt to kill the lawsuit, the City and its co-respondent the Guideville band of Pomo Indians claimed that the tribe could not be sued because of its sovereign immunity from lawsuits and therefore the court had to dismiss the lawsuit since it could not go forward without the tribe as a party. The Court rejected these arguments and held that the tribe had waived its sovereign immunity and that the lawsuit would go forward.
The City of Richmond, Upstream Development and the Guideville tribe entered into an illegal secret settlement agreement. In violation of California’s open government laws the City secretly agreed to create massive development rights at Point Molate as a payoff to Upstream. In the process the development would destroy a natural headland along Richmond’s shoreline that is ideal for a regional park.
SPRAWLDEF and CESP have previously sued the city over its attempts to develop this scenic natural area through illegal deals with developers. Each time, SPRAWLDEF and CESP have stopped such illegal deals from taking place and prevented the City from transferring these public lands to private developers.
Instead of working with SPRAWLDEF, CESP and the Point Molate Alliance (of which the Sierra Club is a member), the City continues its attempts to cut illegal sweetheart deals with developers even though it loses each time.
SPRAWLDEF et al. will now have the chance to present the evidence to the court showing that the city violated California’s open government laws and to ask the court to void the illegal settlement agreement.
More information:
- Read about the Point Molate Alliance's vision for the future of Point Molate, and why housing development is inappropriate for the site, here on our blog.
- For more information on the lawsuit, contact Norman La Force, President of SPRAWLDEF at 510-295-7657.
- For more information about how you can help save Point Molate, go to www.ptmolatealliance.org.
Photo: Hillside at Point Molate, courtesy Lech Naumovich, Golden Hour Restoration Institute.