Not About Water Committee v. Board of Supervisors

[986]

Opinion

SEPULVEDA, J.

This mandamus proceeding, brought by several owners of real property lying north of the City of Vacaville in rural Solano County, challenges as constitutionally flawed the formation of an assessment district and subsequent levy of an assessment on the real property encompassed within it—including the parcels owned by petitioners—by respondent Rural North Vacaville Water District. Petitioners, including Not About Water Committee, an unincorporated association, present an array of challenges to the validity of the assessment district. First, they contend the manner in which property owners were permitted to vote for or against the district’s formation—the use of “weighted” voting proportional to the assessment to be imposed on each affected parcel—violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution as applied to California through the Fourteenth Amendment. Next, petitioners challenge the district’s determination that their properties would be specially benefited by the formation of the assessment district, above and beyond the benefits common to the general public. Third, petitioners allege the formation of the assessment district violated provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.). Last, they contend asserted irregularities attending the formation of both the antecedent water district and the assessment district itself were so palpably unfair as to compel judicial intervention and relief.

As we explain, although cast as a suit in mandamus by petitioners, as a matter of law, this is a special statutory action known as a validation proceeding. The scope of our power of judicial review in such a proceeding is circumscribed in two significant ways, one substantive, the other procedural. Substantively, our review is limited by the principle that the formation of public improvement districts, like the assessment district challenged here, is a

legislative

act. Procedurally, our review is limited by the Legislature’s determination that legal challenges to the formation of local public improvement districts must be heard in a single, exclusive form of action, the validation proceeding. In combination, these two principles limit the scope of our review of challenges to respondents’ determinations that petitioners’ real property will receive a special benefit, proportional to the assessments levied, as a result of the formation of the assessment district. We review de novo, as questions of law, both petitioners’ constitutional challenge to the use of weighted voting in the assessment balloting and the claimed CEQA violation, and review the petitioners’ remaining contentions under the substantial evidence rule.