Citizens for Amending Proposition L v. City of Pomona

Proposition L was enacted to prohibit the construction of additional billboards within the city limits of Pomona. Plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief, alleging that the city council's adoption of the July 2014 "amendment" to a billboard advertising agreement was in fact a new agreement for new billboards enacted in violation of Prop. L.The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's grant of the petition. The court held that plaintiffs had public interest standing to pursue this action, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion by finding that Regency was not indispensable to the litigation. On the merits, the court held that the trial court correctly concluded that Pomona violated its duty to comply with Prop. L by entering into a contract that directly violated its terms. In the alternative, Pomona's exercise of its discretion in such a way as to ignore Prop. L constituted an abuse of that discretion that the court properly could have found arbitrary, capricious, or lacking in evidentiary support. Finally, the court rejected Pomona's argument that the July 2014 agreement was a new contract; affirmed the trial court's award of attorney's fees; and denied sanctions. View "Citizens for Amending Proposition L v. City of Pomona" on Justia Law