City of Watsonville Approves New Home for CASA
The Watsonville City Council recently approved a new home for Court Appointed Special Advocates of Santa Cruz County (CASA). CASA is a nonprofit organization that screens, trains, and supervises adult volunteers to serve as mentors and advocates for children in the foster care system in Santa Cruz County. CASA currently serves nearly 200 children annually from its small quarters in a former hospital. CASA’s new facilities will be located in a vintage 2-story home on Freedom Boulevard that CASA purchased at a foreclosure sale in 2009. After a planned renovation, the new facility will provide a more comfortable meeting environment for the children CASA serves and will have the capacity to meet the needs of the children and CASA’s operations well into the future.
To operate at the new location, CASA applied to the City of Watsonville to change the land use designation and zoning of the property from residential to commercial and to obtain a variance from parking restrictions. Environmental review and preparation of a negative declaration under CEQA were required before the City could take action on the project. The Watsonville City Council approved the general plan amendment, rezoning, variance, and negative declaration on February 23, 2010. Renovation of the new facility will begin as soon as building permits are obtained. Opening is tentatively scheduled for fall of 2010.
CASA is one of many community organizations that Fenton & Keller supports through financial contributions and/or by providing pro bono legal services. David Sweigert of Fenton & Keller advised and assisted CASA in navigating the entitlement and CEQA process leading up to the Watsonville City Council’s approval of CASA’s new home.
Ron Scholl Retires From Fenton & Keller
Ronald F. Scholl, a former Fenton & Keller shareholder, has retired from the firm after practicing for 35 years as a civil litigator. A highly respected member of the Monterey County litigation bar, Ron joined the firm’s predecessor firm, Hoge Fenton Jones & Appel, in 1974 and was a founding member of Fenton & Keller in 1993. Ron graduated from Loyola Law School in 1974 after having received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Texas, a master’s degree in engineering from Northwestern University, and after working for ten years as a research and development engineer. Ron’s law practice focused on general civil litigation, arbitration, and mediation. With his engineering background, Ron's cases were generally those that demanded mastery of complicated technical subject matter, including products liability, environmental, and construction defect litigation.
“During his long career with the firm, Ron distinguished himself as one of the preeminent construction litigators in Monterey County and on the central coast,” said Chuck Keller, Ron's former partner at Hoge Fenton Jones & Appel and Fenton & Keller. “Ron’s quiet, dispassionate, and exacting analytical skills were equally effective in the courtroom and in matters of firm management and continuing legal education. We will sorely miss his wise counsel.”
Ron intends to remain active in pursuing both his legal and personal areas of interest. He hopes to be of continuing service to the court and to the legal community as a consultant and as a court appointed or stipulated referee in traditional and e-discovery disputes, contested partition actions and other situations requiring neutral decision making intervention. Ron is also a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children through CASA of Monterey County.
On a more personal level, Ron will continue to enjoy the special pleasures of playing with his three young grandchildren and of pursuing his newly acquired interest in ocean kayaking, while maintaining his less physically taxing interest in selected areas of computer science.
Ron and Diane, his wife of 40 years, live with their golden retriever, Lily, in Carmel Valley.
Charles R. Keller: “Best Lawyer in America”
Fenton & Keller is pleased to announce that Charles R. Keller has been chosen as the “Best Lawyer in America” in the “Alternate Dispute Resolution and International Arbitration” category in the upcoming edition of The Best Lawyers in America® 2010.
Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States, in part because Best Lawyers is based on a peer-review survey in which over 13,000 leading attorneys throughout the U.S. and Canada vote on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their specialties.
Charles R. Keller has also been chosen as a Super Lawyer annually for many of the past years. The Super Lawyers selection process is a rigorous, multiphase process, including peer nominations and evaluations, combined with third party research. Selections are made on an annual, state-by-state basis to produce a list of lawyers that have attained high peer recognition and have meet ethical standards as outstanding attorneys. This list is intended to be used as a resource for attorneys and consumers searching for legal counsel.
Fenton & Keller Client Prevails in Litigation Against California Coastal Commission
Fenton & Keller’s land use litigation team recently secured a significant victory for a client when the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District reversed the California Coastal Commission’s approval of a permit for development of a nearly 10,000 square foot structure on scenic Kasler Point in Big Sur. The firm’s client, a long-time advocate for vigorous protection of fragile coastal and marine resources in Monterey County and elsewhere, argued that the project violated provisions of the California Coastal Act and Monterey County‘s Local Coastal Program (LCP) for the protection of scenic, biological, and water resources in the Big Sur area.
In a published opinion filed December 30, 2008, the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled to overturn the Coastal Commission’s approval of a coastal development permit for the large structure. (See McAllister v. California Coastal Commission (2008) 169 Cal.App.4th 912.) The Court of Appeal ruled that the Coastal Commission improperly approved the project within environmentally sensitive habitat areas (ESHA), including Smith's blue butterfly habitat (seacliff buckwheat) and coastal bluff scrub habitat. The Court of Appeal determined that the LCP incorporated the Coastal Act's prohibition of non-resource dependent uses such as a single family residence in ESHA. In a letter brief filed after completion of the appellate briefing, the Coastal Commission took the position for the first time that denial of the project would have been an unconstitutional taking of the applicant’s property, even though the administrative record contained no evidence that the Coastal Commission considered the taking issue in approving the permit. The Court of Appeal found the Coastal Commission improperly relaxed standards prohibiting development in ESHA to avoid a taking “without making the necessary findings to justify doing so.” Those findings would require the Coastal Commission to consider whether denial of the permit would constitute an unconstitutional taking and, if so, whether a smaller building could reduce damage to protected resources.
Fenton & Keller attorneys John Bridges and David Sweigert handled the litigation and appeal with the assistance of other members of the firm’s litigation and land use teams.