Saltonstall v. City of Sacramento

231 Cal.App.4th 837

180 Cal.Rptr.3d 342

Adriana Gianturco SALTONSTALL et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.CITY OF SACRAMENTO, Defendant and Respondent;

Sacramento Basketball Holdings, LLC, Real Party in Interest and Respondent.

C077031

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

Filed November 20, 2014

As Modified December 18, 2014

The Smith Firm and Kelly T. Smith, Sacramento, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

James C. Sanchez, Fresno, Brett M. Witter, Jeffrey Heeren, Sacramento; Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, Oakland, Amrit S. Kulkarni, Julia L. Bond and Shaye Diveley for Defendant and Respondent.

Pioneer Law Group, Andrea A. Matarazzo and Jeffrey K. Dorso, Sacramento, for Real Party in Interest and Respondent.

HOCH, J.

The Sacramento Kings, a professional basketball team, have played at the Sleep Train Arena (formerly called Arco Arena) since 1988. In January 2013, the team's then owners entered into a tentative agreement to sell the Sacramento Kings to a group of investors in Seattle, Washington. Seeking to keep the team in Sacramento, the City of Sacramento (City) partnered with Sacramento Basketball Holdings LLC to build a new entertainment and sports center in downtown Sacramento at the site of a shopping mall with declining occupancy rates. In May 2013, the Board of Governors for the National Basketball Association (NBA) rejected an application to sell the team and move it to Seattle, and approved the sale of the team to Sacramento Basketball Holdings. The NBA's Board of Governors also reserved the right to acquire the Sacramento Kings and relocate the team to another city if a new arena in Sacramento does not open by 2017.

To meet the NBA's deadline, the City and Sacramento Basketball Holdings developed a schedule that targets October 2016 as the opening date of the downtown arena. To facilitate timely completion of the project, the Legislature added section 21168.6.6 to the Public Resources Code.¹ Section 21168.6.6 modifies—only for construction of the downtown arena in Sacramento—several deadlines for review of the project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (§ 21050 et seq.). Other than deadlines for review, section 21168.6.6 does not substantively modify CEQA as it applies to the downtown arena project.

Adriana Gianturco Saltonstall and 11 other individuals sued to challenge section 21168.6.6's constitutionality as well as the project's compliance with CEQA requirements.² Saltonstall moved for a preliminary injunction on grounds of imminent harm to the public caused by the demolition of the shopping mall and construction of the downtown arena. The trial court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction.

Saltonstall appeals the denial of the preliminary injunction on two grounds. First, she argues section 21168.6.6 represents an unconstitutional intrusion by the legislative branch on the core function of the courts. Second, Saltonstall contends the preliminary injunction should have been granted because section 21168.6.6 "harms [the public] and the environment," but not the respondents.³ The City counters that the appeal is moot because we cannot resolve the appeal before the trial court decides Saltonstall's action on the merits. The City also requests monetary sanctions for an appeal it characterizes as frivolous, taken for purposes of delay, and to harass the respondents.⁴

Based on Saltonstall's contention that the time limits imposed by section 21168.6.6 are too short to allow any meaningful judicial scrutiny, we exercise our discretion to consider the constitutional challenge on grounds the issue might otherwise evade judicial review despite the potential for repetition. On the merits, we reject Saltonstall's constitutional challenge because section 21168.6.6 does not materially impair a core function of the courts. Moreover, CEQA review does not implicate any constitutionally guaranteed right. Consequently, even if the deadlines set forth in section 21168.6.6 are short, they are not unconstitutional. We reject Saltonstall's argument that the City and Sacramento Basketball Holdings will not be harmed by a preliminary injunction. Saltonstall mistakenly assumes respondents have the burden of showing a preliminary injunction will cause harm to them. Instead, it is Saltonstall who bore but failed to meet the burden to show the necessity for a preliminary injunction. We deny the City's request for attorney fees because the City failed to comply with the California Rules of Court rule applicable to motions for sanctions on appeal. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's order denying the preliminary injunction and deny the City's request for monetary sanctions on appeal.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Downtown Arena Project

The downtown arena project involves demolition of a part of the Downtown Plaza, a pedestrian-only shopping mall in Sacramento bounded by J Street to the north, L Street to the south, 7th Street to the east, and 4th Street to the west. In place of a portion of the shopping mall, the City and Sacramento Basketball Holdings plan to construct a 17,500–seat entertainment and sports center along with approximately 1.5 million square feet of related retail, commercial, office, and residential development.⁵ The project includes six offsite digital billboards on City-owned property as well as the transfer of ownership of certain other City-owned properties to Sacramento Basketball Holdings.

The downtown arena has been designed to meet the requirements of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification. Among the downtown arena's environmental design goals are: carbon neutrality, reduction of vehicle miles travelled per attended, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Urban design goals include plans to spark redevelopment of the downtown area with an influx of basketball game and concert event attendees to the arena.

The demolition and construction schedule targets the opening date for the downtown arena as October 2016 because the NBA reserved the right to acquire the Sacramento Kings and relocate the team to another city if a new arena is not open by 2017.

Section 21168.6.6

On September 27, 2013, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill No. 743 (2013-2014 Reg. Sess.), which, among other things, added section 21168.6.6 to the Public Resources Code. (Stats. 2013, ch. 386, § 7.) Section 16 of Senate Bill No. 743 "declares that a special law is necessary and that a general law cannot be made applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the California Constitution because of the unique need for the development of an entertainment and sports center project in the City of Sacramento in an expeditious manner." Section 21168.6.6 modifies several CEQA deadlines specifically for the project to build the downtown arena in Sacramento.

Section 21168.6.6 does not change CEQA's standards for required content of the environmental impact report (EIR) or approval for the project. Instead, section 21168.6.6 provides an accelerated timeline along with provisions features intended to facilitate the expedited CEQA review such as: preparation of documents in electronic format, making the administrative record readily accessible to the public in electronic format, mediation of issues among the parties, and a series of informational workshops to be held by the City.⁶

In addition to imposing accelerated deadlines on the City as the lead agency for the project, subdivision (d) of section 21168.6.6 requires the Judicial Council of California, by July 1, 2014, to adopt a rule to facilitate the completion of judicial review of the downtown arena project's compliance with CEQA within 270 days.

The City's Review and Approval of the Downtown Arena Project

Consistent with the deadlines set forth in section 21168.6.6, the City engaged in an expedited environmental review process. The City issued a notice of preparation of the EIR on April 12, 2013. The draft EIR was completed and posted on the City's Web site on December 16, 2013. Two days later, the documents relied upon by the City in preparing the draft EIR were also posted online. The City conducted an informal public workshop regarding the draft EIR on December 18, 2013, and a public hearing on January 23, 2014, before the close of public comments. All documents related to the project prepared by the City or submitted by Sacramento Basketball Holdings after the release of the draft EIR were posted on the City's Web site within three business days of the document's preparation or receipt by the City.

As required by section 21168.6.6, the City engaged in mediation with several interested parties (including Saltonstall's attorney) in February 2014 to address issues regarding the draft EIR. The City completed and posted on its public Web site the final EIR for the project on May 9, 2014. The Sacramento City Council certified the final EIR and approved the project on May 20, 2014. Demolition of the shopping mall began in the summer of 2014.

Saltonstall's Lawsuit and Motion for Preliminary Injunction

The day after the City certified the final EIR and approved the project, Saltonstall filed a petition for writ of mandate in which she alleged the City violated CEQA by certifying the final EIR and that section 21168.6.6 violates the California Constitution. In the petition, Saltonstall requested a preliminary injunction, declaratory relief, and attorney fees.

The City filed its notice of determination on May 27, 2014, and certified the administrative record on June 2, 2014.

On June 10, 2014, Saltonstall filed a motion for preliminary injunction to stay demolition of the shopping mall, reiterating her contentions that the City violated CEQA by certifying the final EIR and section 21168.6.6 is unconstitutional. The City and Sacramento Basketball Holdings opposed the motion. The trial court denied the motion for preliminary injunction, rejecting Saltonstall's constitutional challenge by...