We were thrilled that so many of you decided to join us at Wise Guys Pizzeria last Thursday night. Thank you for attending and for supporting this effort.
If you missed it, here is the recap:
- We WON! We stopped the project. Judge Claster sent notification of his preliminary Statement of Decision to our legal counsel, the county, and the developer. He carefully outlined, in over 40 pages, his position on the variety of topics we challenged.
- The Judge found the Environmental Impact Report to be fundamentally flawed. Several of our arguments proved to him the project was in clear violation of the law. This decision rescinds ALL project approvals.
What is Next?
- Because Protect Our Homes and Hills is the prevailing party, we have been assigned to write the Writ of Mandate. The Writ outlines how the County and developer must follow the law and what actions they can take to do that. It remains to be seen what the “fix” is.
- Since the burden is on the prevailing side, we need to fund our attorney’s work to the finish line. Our early estimates are that we need to bring in $20,000 by early-August to cover these “closing” costs.
- There are several issues in the litigation that were not resolved in our favor. And we feel several of these are good candidates for an appeal. This “next step” has yet to be determined.
While we are thrilled that we did win—we must continue to defend our decision and pay for the Writ. We’ve taken on our government, which did not represent us, and we stopped a dangerous project to keep our community and neighborhoods safe. And, we won. It truly has been one of those David vs. Goliath moments.
We know many of you have donated in the past. Many of you donate monthly. We hope you will all continue to support this effort with a donation for this victory. It is not over yet and without your support our options are reduced.