On Tuesday, December 3, COMET [Ed.’s note: for those who don’t know, it stands for Community of Mentone Empowered Together], a Public Benefit Corporation, filed its Petition for Review in the California Supreme Court. The Petition asks four questions: 1) whether Redlands’ demanded annexation in exchange for provision of water and sewer services violate the law; 2) whether its demanded annexations in exchange for those utilities violates the Takings Clauses of the U.S. Constitution; 3) whether COMET’s challenge to the “pre”-annexation “Agreements” forced upon developers and Redlands’ 1956 Annexation No. 4 triggered the time limitations the trial and appellate courts imposed on COMET’s case; and 4) whether the appellate court had jurisdiction to overturn the trial court’s finding that COMET had associational standing [Ed.s’ note: meaning its right to sue in place of a developer who was directly affected, on the basis that all of Mentone is impacted by the forced annexations].
Prior to filing this Petition, COMET had filed a Petition for Rehearing with the appellate court, which summarily denied it [Ed.’s note: that means without an explanation]. The Petition was designed to ask the high court to overturn the appellate court’s Opinion.
COMET cited Code authority for its claim that Redlands extorts annexation and case law that extended the Code authority to civil cases, as well. COMET also cited U.S. Supreme Court case law that found that any government’s demands, for more than was needed in order to provide a permit, constituted “takings of property without just compensation,” which “takings” were prohibited in the highest Court’s view.
COMET’s original Complaint, filed in March 2019, attached a “pre”-annexation “Agreement,” without the signing of which Redlands would refuse to provide the water -“from under Mentone’s streets and from Mill Creek a mile east of where Mentone took its water – but did not challenge any particular annexation other than all which were illegal and Annexation No. 4. As the Complaints explain, Annexation No. 4, accomplished in 1956, went up Wabash to what is now the south side of the airport runway, turned eastward and went almost to Bryant, connecting one of the City’s properties with its east city limits,” explained Joyce Caraway. who has prosecuted COMET’s case from the beginning. “It did so by means of ‘strips’ of land which violated the law concerning such ‘strips,’ and we claim that all annexations adjacent to the 1956 Mill Creek annexation are also illegal,” she continued. “A major factor is that most of Mentone did not know of the annexation and none of the adjacent property owners knew of the illegality at the time, but Leonora Tate notified the City in writing that they did not wish their property to be annexed, which the City honored,” she added. “Later, another property adjacent to Mill Creek was involuntarily annexed by the City in recent years so that it could connect their water property south of Mill Creek Road to the city limits in the Mill Creek properties it had already annexed. Although the property owner objected, Redlands did it anyway.
“As suggested by Redlands’ counsel, the trial court found that COMET had failed to bring a timely challenge and basically threw our case out. We are endeavoring to get it reinstated, or at least have some of the holdings against us reversed,” she continued. “This is the reason for our arguments that Annexation No. 4 and the ‘Pre’-annexation agreements attached to the Complaints – which ‘Agreements’ violate the ‘contiguity law,’ and California Supreme Court case law upholding the Code section – did not trigger the time consideration, also because that time limitation was enacted after Annexation No. 4 was completed.”
“COMET appealed the trial court’s finding of no other types of ‘standing’ but did not appeal COMET’s associational standing; nor did Redlands file a cross-appeal. Thus, the appellate court did not have jurisdiction to overturn the trial court’s finding that COMET had standing; however, the appellate court took away that standing, anyway,” she continued.
Redlands’ counsel has a certain amount of time to answer the Petition for Review; then COMET will have to reply to its arguments. “After that, the Supreme Court has the discretion to grant or deny review; its website states that it only undertakes 3% of the cases referred to it; we hope that the Court will see value in our questions and grant review,” she concluded.
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