Assorted Updates

Still no news on the Imperial v. Castruita litigation.  It's a little perplexing why Judge Klausner hasn't lifted his preliminary restraining order against our recall election.  With Padilla v. Lever removed as precedent, there is very little reason to expect that Imperial's lawsuit will prevail on the merits.  And with that, the preliminary restraining order should be lifted.

You'll recall that Imperial v. Castruita is the case in which Councilman Jay Imperial sued his own city to prevent the February 7 recall election from going forward.  In response to that suit, Judge Klausner issued a preliminary restraining order against our election.  But it's now been about three weeks since the city of Rosemead asked for "clarification" on the Imperial v. Castruita litigation in light of the Ninth Circuit Court's decision to withdraw the original three-judge panel's decision and grant an en banc rehearing in Padilla v. Lever.

On a related note, the brief filed by Frederic Woocher on behalf of one of the defendants in the Padilla v. Lever litigation is available via a link at the top of the May 19 entry of www.electionlawblog.org.  But you'll need WordPerfect to open the file.  Also, I had to save the file to my hard drive first, then launch WordPerfect to open the saved file.  I couldn't open it up directly, for some reason.

Also over the past week, Cory Briggs filed an appeal in California's Court of Appeals (2nd district) on the Wal-Mart environmental impact report.  Judge Yaffe in the state Superior Court upheld the EIR even though it failed to consider alternative sites or twenty-four hour operation.

The plain language of the California Environmental Quality Act is clear on the requirements of the EIR, and it does require that both immediate and "reasonably foreseeable" developments that occur because of the original project need to be considered.  And it requires consideration of alternate sites that could substantially reduce any environmental impacts.  So, if one were to rely upon the plain language of the law, one would think the potential for prevailing in the state Court of Appeals and getting the case sent back to Superior Court would be good.  Then, again, that's what I thought concerning the Imperial case in federal district court after the federal appellate court decision to grant an en banc hearing to Padilla v. Lever.  But here we are three weeks later and the election has still not been reinstated.

It's a bit of a shame that all of this needs to be resolved in court.  If Save Our Community had its way, the voters of Rosemead would have had a chance to decide on the Wal-Mart in early 2005 and on the future of council members Taylor and Imperial on February 7, 2006.  It's too bad that those guys keep trying so hard to keep the voters themselves from having a say on these issues that are so important to the future of Rosemead.