What Are We Doing?

Town Council meeting (March 14, 2017)

Public comments

Lawrence McCarthy (4:23)

I was curious if anyone has paid attention to what has happened in Claremont? BB&K represented Claremont in a eminent domain suit that went to court where they lost.

The LA Superior Court Judge ruled that in California the eminent domain law that applies to water and electrical companies [requires] a presumption of a more necessary use. The municipality must show via resolution of necessity.

BB&K didn’t show the necessity and lost the eminent domain takeover of the water company.

BB&K did say that Claremont and Apple Valley are dissimilar:

• different city
• different court
• different judge

But what about:

• The State of California law?
• California court?
• California judge?
• California city?

Our City Manager said Missoula, Montana, is near identical in size to Apple Valley. But, Missoula isn’t governed by California law, and the Missoula water company was only $88.6 million.

If BB&K thinks there is a real chance of Apple Valley winning their eminent domain take over, why don’t they take this as a contingency contract, where the Town only pays if BB&K wins?

I don’t understand why this council wants to continue putting money in this take over if there isn’t any chance of winning.

Note: Videos neither start nor end at the set times when viewed in Safari, and may not play at all in Chrome. This is due at least in part to the defective way that the Town of Apple Valley encodes its videos for public consumption. I alerted them about this more than a year ago, and still nothing has been done. I’m as unhappy about it as you are.