Com. for Green Foothills v. Santa Clara Cty. Bd. of Sup'rs

Bingham McCutchen, Barbara J. Schussman and Julie Jones, Walnut Creek, for Real Parties In Interest.

The Committee for Green Foothills, a California nonprofit corporation, (Committee) brought a petition for a writ of mandamus to enforce the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Res.Code, § 21000 et seq.) [1] against the County of Santa Clara (County) and its Board of Supervisors (Board). The litigation arose from the Board's December 13, 2005 resolution approving an agreement to be entered with the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford) [2] to satisfy Condition I.2 of a General Use Permit approved in 2000(GUP). The condition required Stanford to dedicate easements for, develop and maintain portions of trails, identified as the C1 and S1 trails on the 1995 Santa Clara Countywide Master Plan, that crossed Stanford's lands. The December 2005 resolution selected a final alignment for the S1 trail from among several potential alternative routes, certified the S1 Trail Alignment Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and made CEQA findings for the S1 trail alignment, determined "no further CEQA review is required by the County prior to…