SUITED UP
“The (Los Angeles) city suit will first and foremost focus on the environmental impacts of the project that constitute significant new information that was not known and could not have been known when the original EIR was done and has not been considered in the Supplemental EIR that was certified by the county of Ventura,” Los Angeles City Deputy City Attorney Keith Pritzger told the Reporter. “Specifically, we’re talking about traffic impacts and the many issues that surround Rocketdyne among them being water availability but also the possible spread of contamination that has not been fully characterized or analyzed. We’re also concerned about the effect that contaminated water may have on endangered species. We’re concerned about violations of the state’s Map Act. We’re concerned with violations of substantive and procedural due process, in particular, the Brown Act violation that has already been filed as a separate suit by the city of Calabasas where you had the (Ventura County) Planning Commission having secret meetings at the project site with the developer’s attorney and consultants.”
Pritzger agrees with Buse that it’s a whole new ballgame. “What is different here is the new information that has come to light and that, basically, has been ignored by the County. So there is new information. For instance, in regards to air quality, in the last decade we have learned that diesel emissions are a lot more harmful than people thought a decade ago,” Pritzger continued. “Now, in the case of this project, there is going to be a heck of a lot of grading. That grading is going to be done by equipment powered by diesel. There will be trucks going in and out for decades and doing building. There are reasonable things that can be done and should be done to minimize those emissions and accompanying health risks to the adjacent residents. That’s just one example of something new that has come along that I think distinguishes the earlier and first lawsuit that was filed a decade ago.”
The costly Second Act of the battle of Ahmanson Ranch won’t be over anytime soon. “The next step after those lawsuits are filed and they will go to some court,” Pritzger continued. “We will have to decide (if) the cases will be consolidated – they probably will. Where will the cases be heard? Will they be heard in Ventura County or elsewhere and if it is held in Ventura County, who will hear it? Those are issues that will have to be addressed. The assembling of the administrative record, which is all the documents that will go before some judge in the hearing of this matter, will take some months to do. Once that record is assembled then we’ll set up a briefing schedule. Then the lawyers will file briefs on each side for a couple months and then we’ll set up a hearing date and make arguments. So all of this will probably take close to a year.”
Regardless of the monumental challenges facing the litigants, Pritzger is confident they will prevail. “Compared to what we had to work with the last time I was involved a decade ago, I think we have a stronger lawsuit and better arguments this time around,” he said. “Basically, my take on it is that the County of Ventura was in a hurry to get this approved possibly because of one Supervisor leaving office and another Supervisor coming into office. As a consequence of that haste, I believe they made a number of errors in deciding to not more fully evaluate the negative environmental impacts of the project. I think that a court will agree with us that that is the case and therefore invalidate the action by the County of Ventura and send the matter back to them for reconsideration and reevaluation.”
