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-casescenario, officials say, Half Moon Bay would become the first Bay Areacity forced to dissolve, and the coastal town’s land would become anunincorporated part of San Mateo County.
Members of the City Council say that’s unlikely, and they plan tovote at a public meeting tonight to retain an appellate law firm and afinancial consultant to advise them on how to tackle a court judgmentthat is more than three times Half Moon Bay’s $10 million annual budget.
. . .
Funding such a bond wouldmean “significant budget cuts across the board,” the City Council saidin 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. TheCity Council said: “The very existence of our city government isthreatened.”
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.