Petition to Supreme Court Denied
(You may download a pdf of this file here)
Petition to Supreme Court Denied
CPR’s lawsuit challenging the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District’s (“MROSD’s”) annexation of coastal San Mateo County ended with the rejection of its Petition for Review by the Supreme Court of the State of California (download here). Thus, this long chapter in CPR’s interaction with this arrogant and predatory special district ends with a final sentence: Justice Denied.
CPR is ever thankful to its many friends for their generous support in this and its ongoing endeavors. Although the matters litigated in this lawsuit (Opening Brief available for download here ) may be characterized predominately as “liberty issues” rather than those of “property rights” (i.e., the right to vote, the right to know what one is voting for, the right to have the lawful expression of one’s dissent/protest counted, the right of self determination, etc.); CPR seeks to assure its friends and supporters that it will continue to keep a watchful eye over MROSD’s maneuverings and keep you informed of their interfacing with the coastal residents’ private property rights – particularly in regards to the imposition of new taxes on private property within the coastal annexation area in order to support MROSD’s land acquisition and recreational agenda within this vast area for which the District connived and succeeded in depriving its residents of their right to approve or reject in the first place.
CPR founders were instrumental in the fashioning of a no property tax loss agreement between MROSD and the La Honda Pescadero Unified School District, and in stripping MROSD of its eminent domain power within the coastal annexation area. CPR was formed though as a consequence of the limitations of these agreements, the countless questions that remained unanswered throughout the entire environmental review of the annexation and as a result of the Farm Bureau’s jumping on board of the open space bandwagon. MROSD wasn’t restrained from, nor did it commit to not, utilizing eminent domain to achieve its objectives within the coastal annexation area; MROSD was/is only prohibited from exercising its own power to condemn property (by State law and its own proclamations). Nothing prevents MROSD from “out sourcing” its forced acquisition needs in the coastal area.
Currently, MROSD has concealed itself behind the State of California’s power to “do as it pleases” as it oversees (along with POST) the development of 3 miles of trails and parking facilities on the North Cowell and Purisima Farms, south of Half Moon Bay. The Farm Bureau, for all its “understandings” with MROSD, is powerless to protect these prime and productive agricultural lands from recreational scrambling by this simpleminded and extravagantly funded open space cabal.
The protest of the annexation was CPR’s first educational initiative; it succeeded in garnering enough protests from registered voters residing within the coastal annexation area to have forced the annexation question’s submission to the electorate within this area. However, (and the upshot of the failed and nearly 4 year long litigation) CPR was unsuccessful in forcing the totally politicized San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Committee (“LAFCo”) to reverse its decision to reject a decisive number of authentic protests on the basis of conjured technicalities and every convoluted pretext.
Do you think that they were afraid that if the question were placed on the ballot that the proposed annexation would have been rejected? MROSD held out the promise of an election throughout the public hearing process – an election that would have been necessitated by any tax assessment of the properties included in the annexation. In the end the District decided to forego any imposition of taxes in association with the annexation in order to avoid the risk(s) of an election.
Tax Alert: MROSD is presently monitoring (as is CPR) the outcome of Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association v. Santa Clara County Open Space Authority in which a decision from the Supreme Court is due (probably in July, 2008). MROSD joined in an amicus brief in support of the Open Space Authority in this case where an open space district has declared an entire County (excepting only MROSD’s lands) an assessment district in order to circumvent the necessity of a 2/3 majority of the electorate in order to pass a parcel tax.
CPR is monitoring this case not only for its wide ranging property tax implications, and MROSD’s conceivable taxation initiatives within the coastal annexation area; but because of its parallel cause of action to the core issue in CPR’s lawsuit. The Court may also address our issue as to whether an agency must follow the law in regards to what (how much) must be disclosed via any notice requirements in order to confirm informed consent in regards to any protest-able governmental action.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Terry Gossett, President