Sorry if I misstated the litigation situation in California. What I meant is
that board or commission appointees are part of the government system and
indemnified against personal attack. Permit applicants must exhaust the
administrative process before considering litigation, and that includes consultants and
preservationists who wish to attack the Lead Agency handling the permit.

My primary task during environmental document review for the County of San
Diego was to make sure the impact reports or mitigated negative declarations
(kind of like a federal EA) were "bullet proof" against litigation. I not only
handled the archaeology and history, but served as project manager on
subdivisions, golf courses, utility lines etc. and those projects were worth many
millions of dollars to their permit applicants. None of my projects were litigated
for 22 years, but when elected officials began interfering and reducing the
report documentation (editing the wording) and mitigation (claiming we were being
unfair), we had six suits pending by the time I retired two years later. I
had to appear in court one time during that career and it was because of
political interference (the developer and government lost the suits, the court voided
project approval, and the multi-million dollar housing and golf course
project died on the vine). People do sue agencies in California, but only after the
final hearing when a permit is approved or denied.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.