"No merit" highway 1 widening lawsuit moves forward

Pacifica Tribune/Jane Northrop, 7/23/13.  "City attorney sends letter to plaintiffs in response to highway widening lawsuit." 

Throw in any environmental technicalities,
we may lose but we get paid, just like Brent Plater

Except, we are filing a frivolous lawsuit

"Local resident and former mayor Peter Loeb, through his attorney, Hal Bohner, earlier this month filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against the city of Pacifica requesting declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the proposed highway widening project between Fairway and Rockaway.  Two days later, the city responded in a letter sent directly to Bohner, asking that the case be dropped. 

....  In the final section of the letter, it states the allegations in the complaint lack merit.

"You fail to acknowledge that the policies upon which you rely do not set forth specific mandates. For example, you cannot establish that the discussion in the planning documents of three decades old proposal for Highway 1 compels the city to oppose any project that varies therefrom. Similarly, with respect to the previously contemplated frontage road, you cannot establish that the city adopted any policy mandating the construction of a frontage road. You cannot establish that the project is inconsistent with any policy. The current project is not intended to increase the overall capacity of Highway 1, but to improve the current, substandard segment. The project is designed to alleviate a localized bottleneck only within the project reach, not to change circulation or traffic volumes beyond this limited 1.3 mile segment of highway. Thus the project does not conflict with any policy upon which you rely, including the three-decade-old proposal and the frontage road concept."

When asked to comment on the response from the city attorney, Bohner said, "We disagree with most everything they say in their July 12 letter. We will definitely not be dropping our suit. We are preparing a written reply to the July 12 letter and our written response will follow later."   Read article.

Reference - Fix Pacifica article, "City response to Bohner/Loeb lawsuit", includes "City response to Bohner", July 12, 2013 letter (9 pages pdf), and the original Bohner/Loeb lawsuit complaint, filed July 10, 2013 (9 pages pdf).  Related - articles of interest:  "Bohner/Loeb vs. Route 1", letter from Hal Bohner to city council, 6/4/13, and  PH1A letter alternatives to Highway 1 widening, 6/11/13.   Note:  Photographs, red nose from Gigaom, photo ollyy via Shutterstock, "I will not file frivolous lawsuits" graphic from Mental Recession. 

Posted by Kathy Meeh