Legal Briefs: Cal Supremes Take Another Newhall Case

Another Newhall Ranch case goes to the Supreme Court. The winning environmentalists seek a rehearing in the big Newhall lvictorh -- mostly to clarify the nature of their win. And, on another front, an appellate court reheard a groundwater extraction fee case and didn't budget.Now that the California Supreme Court has given environmentalists a big win in the "main event" Newhall Ranch case, the court has accepted one of the ancillary cases, CA Native Plant Society v. County of Los Angeles, No. B258090. This case involves the Mission Village phase of Newhall Ranch, which received county approval for its January project-level EIR approval in 2012. It was challenged as of June 2012.Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether to grant a re-hearing in the main event, because the Center for Biological Diversity - which mostly won the case - wants a clarification that it cast as a request for a rehearing.   In seeking a "clarification without change in judgment," the Center for Biological Diversity is asking the Supreme Court to clarify -- beef up, actually -- its ruling in the case with regard to the state Fish & Game Code. In its brief to the court, the Center wrote: "Given the Court's conclusion that authorized take of a fully protected fish in violation of Fish and Game Code section 5515, 'the writ of mandate to be issued' must surely address both DFW's abuse of discretion under CEQA and its violation of section 5515. The adoption of CEQA mitigation measures authorizing the catch or capture of the fully protected unarmored threespine stickleback to protect the fish from harm caused by the project's construction "is expressly barred under section 5515."And in the case of the Great Oaks Water District in Santa Clara County - a case in which the appellate court ruled a groundwater extraction fee was partly a fee and partly a tax but in any event didn't require a vote - the appellate court affirmed its earlier ruling for the second time since last spring.

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