Government's Response to $37M Inverse Condemnation Judgment

The $37 million inverse condemnation judgment against the City of Half Moon Bay, California by  the US District Court for the Northern District of California is having some repercussions, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

Under the worst-case scenario, officials say, Half Moon Bay would become the first Bay Area city forced to dissolve, and the coastal town's land would become an unincorporated part of San Mateo County.

Members of the City Council say that's unlikely, and they plan to vote at a public meeting tonight to retain an appellate law firm and a financial consultant to advise them on how to tackle a court judgment that is more than three times Half Moon Bay's $10 million annual budget.

. . .

Funding such a bond would mean "significant budget cuts across the board," the City Council said in a joint statement last week. "Everything will be affected - parks, streets, libraries, repairs - every municipal function will face cuts."

Paying the judgment outright appears to be out of the question. The City Council said: "The very existence of our city government is threatened."

Read the complete article here.  I wrote about the decision here, here and here.  The city probably should have thought about the consequences before it turned the plaintiff's property into undevelopable wetlands, but government regulators often don't seriously consider the possibility of losing.  The law is stacked against property owners (as one government attorney once confessed, "we'll motion you for a year before we ever reach the merits"), and even if the government eventually loses, any monetary judgment will be paid with O.P.M. (Other People's Money).   

Professor Gideon Kanner has also posted further commentary about the apparent lack of widespread media interest in the decision.