Community Water Coalition v. Santa Cruz County Local Agency Formation Commission

I. Introduction

The University of California Santa Cmz (UCSC) filed an application with the Santa Cruz County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), requesting approval of an agreement between it and the City of Santa Cmz (City) pursuant to which City would extend water and sewer services to UCSC’s north campus, an *1321 area that is outside City’s jurisdictional boundaries. Seeking to halt LAFCO’s consideration of the application, appellant Community Water Coalition filed a complaint and petition for writ of mandate (Code Civ. Proc., § 1085), contending that LAFCO had no jurisdiction to consider the application since the prospective recipient of the services, rather than the service provider, had filed it. Even though City was a party to the agreement for which UCSC sought LAFCO approval, and even though LAFCO procedures required City to submit a letter stating that it was willing to provide the services if LAFCO approved, appellant maintained that under Government Code section 56133, 1 LAFCO had to dismiss the matter because City had not filed the application in its own name. The trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend, concluding that the operative…