Gomes

Discussion. 1All statutory references are to the Water Code unless otherwise indicated. All references to “Ordinance” are to measures adopted by the Mendocino City Community Services District.

1 Mendocino City Community Services Dist. (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 249 (Gomes I). Following a court trial, the court found the ordinances contain an invalid attorney’s fee provision but otherwise rejected Gomes’s claims on the merits. On appeal, Gomes contends the judgment must be reversed because the ordinances impose fees for groundwater extraction that voters must approve in an election, which the district did not hold. (See § 10710.) We conclude this claim is not barred by Gomes I, which involved an earlier generation of ordinances and construed different provisions of the Act. However, in the published portion of the opinion we reject Gomes’s claim on the merits and affirm the judgment. As we shall explain, although the ordinances Gomes challenges in this action impose fees on property owners that relate to the district’s groundwater management services, these fees are not imposed “for the extraction of groundwater” (§ 10710) and, thus, do not require voter approval in the manner set…