Not About Water Committee v. Board of Supervisors

This mandamus proceeding, brought by several owners of real property lying north of the City of Vacaville in rural Solano County, challenges as constitutionally flawed the formation of an assessment district and subsequent levy of an assessment on the real property encompassed within it—including the parcels owned by petitioners—by respondent Rural North Vacaville Water District. Petitioners, including Not About Water Committee, an unincorporated association, present an array of challenges to the validity of the assessment district. First, they contend the manner in which property owners were permitted to vote for or against the district’s formation—the use of “weighted” voting proportional to the assessment to be imposed on each affected parcel—violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution as applied to California through the Fourteenth Amendment. Next, petitioners challenge the district’s determination that their properties would be specially benefited by the formation of the assessment district, above and beyond the benefits common to the general public. Third, petitioners allege the formation of the assessment district violated…