Wilson

This is an appeal by the Hidden Valley Municipal Water District from a judgment directing the issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate. The writ would order the District to set aside its decision of February 29, 1964, denying petitioners’ petition for exclusion of their lands from the District and its decision of May 2, 1964, denying their petition for the District’s consent to the annexation of the same lands to the Calleguas Municipal Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The writ would instead order the District to grant both petitions.

In 1955 and 1956 property owners within Hidden Valley in Ventura County, as an association, formulated a policy to preserve within the Vallejo its agricultural way of life. In June 1960 they formed the District for the same purpose and more specifically to prevent the Valley from being included in the adjoining Calleguas Municipal Water District and in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Practically all of the people owning land or living within the Valley thought then and apparently still think that if any part of the Valley becomes a part of these districts and a supplemental water…