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Fire district sues city over denial of plans for Village station
District hoping courts will allow station to go forward
City 'abused its discretion'
By Oakley Brooks
The Saratoga Fire District filed suit in county court Dec. 4, claiming the city of Saratoga had "committed a prejudicial abuse of discretion" and infringed on the district's property rights by denying its plans for a new village fire station in September.
In a 10-page petition sent to the city last week, the district charged that city council members had not produced sufficient evidence to reverse the planning commission's June approval of the new station.
The city council had rejected the plans based on the station's increased size and the plans' inability to solve parking problems and safety issues at the fire district's corner lot at the Saratoga Avenue-Highway 9 intersection.
A group of citizens and firefighters had appealed the earlier planning commission approval of the station, bringing the issue before the council.
The council's decision, according to last week's petition, prevented the district from moving into a seismically safe building, something that was "arbitrarily and unreasonably denying [the] District its rights and hindering the performance of its duties to provide fire protection services."
In addition to asking the Santa Clara County Superior Court to require the city to review the station plans again with court guidance, the district requested an undisclosed amount of damages.
Included in the damages will be the interest on a $6 million bond that voters approved in 2000--forfeited because the district has not yet spent the required amount of bond money--and architectural, engineering and attorney's fees.
Fire Commission Chairman Bob Egan said that given the city council's position, his district had been left with no alternative but to seek approval for its planned 13,000-square-foot fire station from a Superior Court judge.
"The public just keeps telling us that we need to build this station," Egan said.
The complaint, filed on the last day of a 90-day appeal window following the city council's Sept. 5 decision, came in spite of the district's refusal to re-submit plans to the city for a scaled down station. Under city law, the district could have resubmitted plans immediately after the city council ruled.
The suit was also filed a day after Egan met with City Manager Dave Anderson to discuss the district's use permit application for a temporary station at the former Contempo Realty building on Highway 9. That application, aimed at moving fire operations out of the current Village station, had not been processed because the city was requiring more detailed plans for the temporary facility, something Egan found unacceptable.
"They're not moving forward like we thought they would," Egan said.
Egan could not say definitively when the district's three-member governing commission had decided to pursue legal action against the city. He did say that in the commission's Nov. 16 meeting--the first after Joe Long and incumbent Jay Geddes were elected to the commission Nov. 6--a potential suit was discussed at length.
Following the announcement of the suit, city officials remained matter-of-fact about the litigation. While City Attorney Richard Taylor said he was disappointed that the fire district had not stuck to the city's normal planning process and submitted altered plans, he thought the current suit rested on shaky grounds.
"I don't know what the basis is for the [infringement on property rights] argument," Taylor said.
Mayor John Mehaffey echoed Taylor's sentiment by saying the case lacked merit. Mehaffey said he thought the district had lodged the complaint in order to give it another avenue for pursuing fire station construction should officials not secure the design they want in ongoing public safety center discussions.
"If they come to an impasse over what the safety center should look like," Mehaffey said, "they still have the suit to hang their hat on."
Talks on a proposed Village safety facility combining U.S. Postal Service, sheriff's and fire facilities were set to resume Dec. 10.
Egan confirmed that fire officials would continue in the safety center discussions while pursuing litigation, a two-tier process that he said would allow the station to be built independent of the center but with proposed sheriff's and U.S. Postal Service facilities in mind. Fire officials, including the recently elected Long and Geddes, have maintained that they can more quickly build a station independent of the safety center.
City Manager Anderson, who's moderating the safety center discussions, said he didn't think the district's pursuit of legal action would undermine the talks.
"We've been able to drop the game- playing when we enter the room, and we hope to be able to continue that," Anderson said of sessions that have brought typically adverse citizens and fire officials to the same table.
City council members still elected to hold off on selecting an architect to begin preliminary drawings for the safety center last week, waiting to see if fire officials would stray from a firm commitment to the center process.
And firefighter and citizen task force Chairman Dave Dolloff, a steady critic of the fire district, wondered if the productive safety center discussions of the last several months would break off because of the suit.
"You'd think by now [district officials] would know that there are other ways to do things," Dolloff said.
As of Dec. 4, the city had 30 days to respond to the filing the district submitted to the county.
Meanwhile, district lawyer Hal Toppel said he would be preparing the administrative record for a future hearing, by assembling documents from the district's original design application, the June planning commission hearing and the later city council hearing.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
