Municipal & Local Govt law

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Civil Beat‘s recent story “Mayor, City Council Move Closer to Litigation on Rail” details the potential lawsuit over who gets to control the $18 million budget of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART), the newly created “semi-autonomous” agency that is overseeing the $5 billion rail project. The focus of the story is substance of the dispute over whether the city council or the mayor holds the purse strings, but this passage caught our eye:

In a Wednesday press conference, Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle confirmed that he’d be willing to sue the City Council over its position.

Carlisle told Civil Beat that the cost of legal fees would not be passed on to taxpayers. He said he sees no conflict of interest with the city lawyers — who represent both the executive and legislative branches — representing both the City Council and the mayor on the issue.

This naturally…

Continue Reading Two Wolves And A Lamb Decide On Dinner

Civil Beat‘s recent report on the mayor’s plan to demolish the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial, a salt-water swimming pool erected to honor those who served in “the Great War,” not only brought back some childhood memories (I swam there as a kid) but reminded us of the cost of preservation. When the thing or property sought to be preserved  — or, to use the bumper-sticker vernacular, “saved” — is public property like the Natatorium, the discussion usually involves the cost of doing so balanced against the desire to keep it.

But when the property involved is private property, you usually hear very little about the burdens placed on the owner, or the cost to the public of preservation. Which brings us to the tile of this post, which was inspired by a recent column by Howard Dicus “What do you want to save in Honolulu that’s old?…

Continue Reading What Do You Want To Save In Honolulu (And How Much Will It Cost?)

ABA_SLG Next week (May 12 – 15, 2011), the ABA Section of State & Local Government Law is meeting in Portland, Oregon.

This is our Spring Meeting (complete agenda here), and is co-sponsored by the Urban Land Institute and the American Planning Association. In addition to the business and administrative meetings (I promise, the meeting of the Condemnation Law Committee will be brief), we’ve lined up an impressive selection of CLE programs. Topics include:

  • Green Building – This panel will discuss the issues of Green Building Ordinances, ongoing cases involving the preemption of local green building codes under federal law and other challenges and pitfalls with Green Building Ordinance initiatives.
  • Cyberbullying – This program will explore the challenges that the Internet brings to protecting students from harassment while at the same time respecting

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Continue Reading Upcoming CLE And ABA State & Local Govt Law Section Meeting (Portland)

Here’s the recording of last week’s oral arguments in Comm’n on Ethics of the State of Nevada v. Carrigan, No. 10-568 (cert. granted Jan 7, 2011).

Stream the arguments below, or download the 25mb mp3 here.

The written transcript is available here. The merits and amici briefs are available here. 

We’re writing up a summary of the arguments, and we’ll post it soon.Continue Reading Oral Arguments In Ethics Case

Tomorrow (April 27, 2011), the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Comm’n on Ethics of the State of Nevada v. Carrigan, No. 10-568 (cert. granted Jan 7, 2011). In that case, the Court is considering whether a state statute that requires elected officials to recuse themselves from considering matters on which they appear to have conflicts of interest impermissibly infringes upon a city councilman’s First Amendment rights.

The Court will confront the issue of whether an elected official’s vote in a quasi-judicial matter is protected “speech,” and what standards courts should apply when ethics laws are challenged under the First Amendment. The Nevada Supreme Court invalidated its state’s ethics law which required a Sparks, Nevada city councilmember to recuse himself from considering an application to develop a hotel/casino because the developer’s “consultant” was a “longtime professional and personal friend” of the councilmember, and had been his campaign …

Continue Reading Oral Argument Preview: Supreme Court Reviewing Ethics Laws – Is An Elected Official’s Vote “Speech?”

Here are the final four briefs in Comm’n on Ethics of the State of Nevada v. Carrigan, No. 10-568 (cert. granted Jan 7, 2011). In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a state statute which requires elected officials to recuse themselves from considering matters on which they appear to have conflicts of interest impermissibly infringes upon a city councilman’s First Amendment rights.

As we wrote in this month’s Zoning & Planning Law Report, this case is worth following since if the Court adopts the scrict scrutiny rationale of the Nevada Supreme Court (which invalidated Nevada’s ethics laws under the First Amendment), all similar conflict-of-interest laws could be subject to similar — and quite often “fatal” — scrutiny.

The Court will hear oral arguments next week, Wednesday, April 27, 2011.

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Continue Reading Last Briefs In SCOTUS Ethics Case: Does Elected Official With A Conflict Of Interest Have A Right To Vote Anyway?