Attorneys for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network have asked the county court to award the nonprofit nearly $1 million in fees and costs accrued during successful litigation dating back to 2007 that forced the county to reevaluate how it regulates future development in the San Geronimo Valley.
Filed on Sept. 14 by one of SPAWN’s attorneys, Deborah Sivas, the motion for attorneys fees and costs originally set a steeper price tag, at over $1.6 million, but SPAWN decided to drop the total amount down to $913,531.91 plus additional small expenses. A court hearing to decide whether to accept or deny the monetary request is scheduled for Oct. 30.
The motion preceded the county’s approval on Tuesday to pay $192,431 for a consultant to draft a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report meant to evaluate the cumulative environmental impacts to salmon habitat caused by future development in the valley. Requiring the county to draft such a report was SPAWN’s principal aim during its nearly decade-long, multi-suit litigation.
Ms. Sivas argued that she and a team of pro-bono attorneys, which included Stanford students, are entitled to a higher reward for taking on a risky case involving the protection of “important public resources and rights.” Ms. Sivas noted that the fee amount was based on standard Bay Area hourly rates for experienced lawyers engaged in environmental or similar legal practice, at $650 an hour. But she also claimed in the motion that she redacted most of her students’ billable hours by 33 percent to account for any timekeeping inefficiencies.
SPAWN’s executive director, Todd Steiner, described the motion as a means to punish the county for what he believes to be actions that skirted the law. He noted that all of the court fees would go to attorneys, and none to SPAWN.
“What those fees do, hopefully, is to convince the county that they need to follow the law, now and into the future,” said Mr. Steiner, who founded the nonprofit environmental activist group under the valley-based Turtle Island Restoration Network. “There is a significant cost economically, as well as politically, for taking actions that are not legal.”
But Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who has been the leading public official opposing the recent legal actions of Mr. Steiner’s group, countered that the fee award would strip the county of resources it could otherwise use for habitat restoration efforts.
“I think the tax dollars going into whatever the settlement amount is are dollars being diverted away from whatever restoration efforts we’re engaged in,” Mr. Kinsey said. “These large awards that they seek reinforce the impression” that SPAWN’s underlying motives are financially driven.
The long litigious history between SPAWN and Marin County began in 2004, when the nonprofit successfully sued to prevent approval of a 3,649-square-foot home proposed by Joshua Hedlund. Then, in 2007, SPAWN challenged an update of Marin’s main development-policy document, the Countywide Plan, on grounds that it did not take into account the cumulative environmental impacts to salmon habitat caused by future development in the valley. Without such an analysis, SPAWN argued, the county’s plan would be in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.
Yet rather than immediately file suit, SPAWN and the county entered into a series of “tolling agreements” that prevented a lawsuit in return for a temporary moratorium on building in the valley and the county’s pledge to draft a stream conservation ordinance incorporating an analysis of cumulative impact and mitigation measures.
Meanwhile, nearly a dozen valley residents challenged the legality of the tolling agreements, but the court ultimately dismissed their complaints.
In 2010, the county prepared a Salmon Enhancement Plan at a cost of $300,000 that, again, SPAWN deemed insufficient. SPAWN filed suit to compel the county to fulfill its promise to prepare a streamside ordinance, and although the court ruled in SPAWN’s favor on this count it also determined that the Countywide Plan’s existing environmental impact report was acceptable.
In 2012, SPAWN appealed the ruling and, the next year, filed another suit against the county in response to its adoption of a streamside conservation ordinance that did not analyze cumulative impacts. In 2014, SPAWN finally tasted some victory when a state appellate court ordered that the county draft a supplemental environmental impact report, though it denied SPAWN’s request to temporarily halt development in the valley.
After nearly a decade of litigation, Mr. Steiner said he’s now “cautiously optimistic” that the new impact report will identify development limitations that would protect the valley’s salmon habitat.
“Hypothetically, this study could inform them better on what the limitations are,” he said. “But, to be perfectly honest, we already know what the limits are.”
Mr. Steiner said his group will continue to invest in habitat restoration. During its history, Mr. Steiner said, SPAWN has acquired seven parcels along valley creeks and received around $2 million in grants for restoration projects.
Moreover, the nonprofit is interested in operating as a land trust that couples affordable housing with land conservation. Through a land trust, Mr. Steiner said, SPAWN could raise grant money to purchase properties adjacent to streams and sell houses at below-market prices. A conservation easement on the properties would require property owners to keep future development modest and away from creeks.
Likewise, SPAWN has expressed interest in purchasing the seven-acre property formerly owned by Mr. Hedlund. But that property, Mr. Steiner said, would be reserved for habitat restoration only, not affordable housing.
Its current owner, Victor Scheinman, said that he’d like to sell the property to a land trust, or even to the county if it could come up with enough money. Mr. Kinsey said that the county had not spoken with Mr. Scheinman recently about any purchase.