[quote=paramount]BG: The Fat Lady is warming up. It’s done. While it is true that Granite has paid off the supervisors, it would be very unusual for the sups to vote against the commission.
And they refused to certify the EIR. Granite doesn’t want this fight – and believe me we were ready to take this to court. This is an uphill battle Granite cannot overcome.
You lost.[/quote]
paramount, I’m not “losing” anything. Working and residing nearly 70 miles from the proposed project, I have no personal stake in it, one way or the other. Truly.
My l-o-o-o-o-ng experience, however, has taught me never to “assume” that a “fight” is over just because one is “turned down,” denied and/or has suffered an adverse action at the hands of a “government entity.”
The commission’s vote came during its sixth hearing on the project. The first in late April drew more than 1,000 people, and another in June lasted 15 hours. Emotional pleas from everyday residents gave way in later hearings to dry testimony from experts hired by Granite and quarry opponents.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but my understanding is that these hearings before the Planning Commission were “mandatory.”
The Planning Commission’s refusal to certify quarry’s (very expensive) EIR is further grounds for a mandamus action.
The quarry has a right to order a complete record of their Planning Commission hearing and all the testimony, prepared by the county, for later use in their mandamus action.
California CCP 1094.6 reads, in pertinent part:
(c) The complete record of the proceedings shall be prepared by the local agency or its commission, board, officer, or agent which made the decision and shall be delivered to the petitioner within 190 days after he has filed a written request therefor. The local agency may recover from the petitioner its actual costs for transcribing or otherwise preparing the record. Such record shall include the transcript of the proceedings, all pleadings, all notices and orders, any proposed decision by a hearing officer, the final decision, all admitted exhibits, all rejected exhibits in the possession of the local agency or its commission, board, officer, or agent, all written evidence, and any other papers in the case.
(e) As used in this section, decision means a decision subject to review pursuant to Section 1094.5, suspending, demoting, or dismissing an officer or employee, revoking, denying an application for a permit, license, or other entitlement, imposing a civil or administrative penalty, fine, charge, or cost, or denying an application for any retirement benefit or allowance.
(f) In making a final decision as defined in subdivision (e), the local agency shall provide notice to the party that the time within which judicial review must be sought is governed by this section.
(emphasis added)
Here, the $64M question is, will the quarry begin ordering the hearing record now and get its preparation underway or wait weeks/months for the supes to rubberstamp the Planning Commission’s Recommendation and issue the quarry a “final decision” under CCP 1094.6(f)?
What would YOU do if you had this much $$ and time invested in a project of this magnitude?
