The state Department of Conservation has sued the City of Elk Grove for approving a 295-acre commercial development on farmland at the edge of town. The year-old city approved the 3 million-square-foot Lent Ranch Marketplace project in late June. One month later, three environmental groups, including the Environmental Council of Sacramento, filed a lawsuit claiming that the city did not mitigate the loss of farmland and failed to address the safety of building a massive retail project near two large propone storage tanks. The Sacramento Bee reported that Westfield Corporation, an Australian shopping center developer that owns the Downtown Plaza in Sacramento, bankrolled the lawsuit. The state filed a lawsuit based on similar concerns in early August. State officials called the project "leapfrog development" that would encourage further urbanization of area farmland. Gov. Davis has signed a bill that limits the use of Marks Roos bonds. The bill, AB 457 (Canciamilla), requires that the local government entity with land use jurisdiction over a project must be part of any Marks Roos bond issue. The bill effectively outlaws the creation of "roving" joint powers authorities. Lawmakers have tried to block roving JPAs for several years, but developers took to creating mutual water companies for their projects. These water companies then joined with cities or other public agencies—often hundreds of miles away—to issue Marks Roos bonds to fund project infrastructure. However, as some developments failed, bonds have gone into default. In 1999, Davis vetoed AB 1511 (Flores) that would have barred mutual water companies from participating in roving JPAs. The Presidio Trust released a draft implementation plan and associated environmental impact statement for the 1,450-acre San Francisco park in late July. The plan focuses new development in the former Army base's northeast corner, near the Palace of Fine Arts and recently restored Crissy Field. The plan limits total structural space to 5.6 million square feet. The Presidio now has about 6 million square feet of structures; some of those buildings will be razed and others remodeled (see CP&DR Local Watch, March 2001). Environmentalists, civic leaders and neighborhood representatives quickly criticized the plan as one that would generate too many visitors and employees, harming the natural resources and congesting streets. Some people also said the plan lacked adequate detail. Less than a month after the plan's release, the Presidio Trust signed an agreement with moviemaker George Lukas's Lucasfilm Ltd. to allow the company to develop a 23-acre office and movie production campus at the site of an abandoned hospital and annex. About 2,500 workers are forecast at the 900,000 square-foot-Lucasfilm campus, which Presidio Trust officials see as the park's financial backbone. The Presidio Trust Implementation Plan and the draft EIS are available at http://www.presidiotrust.gov/ptip. A person may not serve simultaneously on a school board and a city planning commission if boundaries for the school district and the city overlap, according to a state attorney general's opinion. National City Prosecuting Attorney George Eiser III said he raised the question when a local school board member applied for a planning commission appointment. Deputy Attorney General Gregory Gonot said that public offices are incompatible if there is a "clash of duties or loyalties." Such would be the case here. "What the school district considers to be in the best interests of the public with respect to its land use decisions may differ from that of the planning commission in its determination of whether the decisions are consistent with the city's general plan," Gonot wrote. Opinion No. 01-307 is available at http://caag.state.ca.us/opinions/published/01jul.htm. Fresno County and the cities of Fresno and Clovis in August approved a conceptual agreement that redirects urban growth in metropolitan Fresno. The pact provides the two cities with about 18,000 acres for urban expansion during the next two decades, with growth occurring in the cities' southeast ends before northward expansion could resume. For decades, both cities have marched north toward Madera County. The agreement ends several years of bickering and threatened litigation. Under the pact, both cities will share sales tax revenue from new growth areas with the county. The agreement appears to allow Clovis to pursue its 1993 general plan, which focuses growth in two urban centers in the southeast as the town of 68,000 doubles in population during the next 20 years. The agreement also roughly matches Fresno's proposed general plan, which emphasizes infill development, downtown redevelopment and higher densities as the city grows to nearly 800,000 people by 2025. (See CP&DR Local Watch, September 2000). Two water contracting coalitions and several individual water agencies have filed a lawsuit over East Bay Municipal Utility District's plan to divert water from the Sacramento River just south of Sacramento. East Bay MUD, the City of Sacramento and Sacramento County worked out the agreement less than a year ago after fighting for three decades over East Bay MUD's plan to take water from the American River. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and many environmentalists hailed the agreement. It would allow East Bay MUD to take up to 133,000-acre-feet of water from the Sacramento River during dry years, leaving the American River untouched. But in their lawsuit, other water agencies that rely on the Sacramento River and the Bay Delta argue that the diversion could decrease the amount of water available for farms and cities outside East Bay MUD, and could raise the salinity level of Delta water. The suit claims East Bay MUD and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation did not prepare an adequate environmental impact report. Representatives of East Bay MUD said the suit was premature because a supplemental EIR is in the works. The suit was filed by the 32-agency San Luis and Delta Mendota Water Authority, the 27-member State Water Contractors, the Contra Costa Water District, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Kern County Water Agency and Westlands Water District. The Bay Area Discovery Museum has indefinitely postponed the groundbreaking of its planned expansion because of a lawsuit filed by the City of Sausalito. Although no injunction is in place, museum leaders said they did not want to move forward during litigation. The 10-year-old museum is located at Fort Baker, on the edge of San Francisco Bay just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The expansion calls for 12,500 square feet of classrooms and a theater, plus a 2 1/2-acre outdoor exhibit about the Bay's environment. The city contends that the project amounts to unnecessary commercialization of Fort Baker, whose historic sites should be restored. The Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission has determined that incorporation of Rancho Cordova is "marginally feasible." The study suggests the proposed city along Highway 50 east of Sacramento would have to impose additional taxes. The Rancho Cordova Incorporation Committee said the study confirmed that the community could make it on its own and discounted the need for higher taxes. County officials said the study did not account for the full impacts on the area if Rancho Cordova were to become Sacramento County's seventh city. Incorporation backers hope to place the issue before voters in March. Voters in Moreno Valley rejected a proposed $20 annual parcel tax to fund construction of a new library. Only 9.5% of registered voters in the Riverside County town of 142,000 people participated in the July 31 special election, according to the City Clerk's office. Thus, only 2,541 votes (55.6% of those cast) were enough to defeat the assessment. A San Francisco ballot measure that bars landlords from passing along the cost of capital improvements to tenants has been invalidated by San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Robertson Jr. The judge said that Proposition H, approved by voters in November 2000, violated landlords' rights to a fair return on their investments. The City of Sacramento, Union Pacific Railroad and the owners of the Sacramento Kings will jointly fund a $150,000 feasibility study of a basketball arena and entertainment center on an old rail yard next to downtown. The Kings currently play in Arco Arena, which was built 15 years ago in part to spur development in North Natomas, several miles north of downtown.