City gets sued—again

Predictions that a City Council decision made last October would lead to a lawsuit have proven accurate. Jessica Haggard, whom the council turned down when she applied for a routine utility-easement abandonment so she could join two homes she owns on Tradewinds Court, filed the suit on March 3, according to a report in the Chico Enterprise-Record. The city already had approved the physical merger.

Neighbors who said they hadn’t known of the merger when it went through the approval process opposed the abandonment, saying Haggard’s new home and day-care center would be too big for the small cul-de-sac.

After the council voted 4-3 on Oct. 2, 2007, to stop the merger by denying the abandonment, Mayor Andy Holcombe said he was “concerned that there’s exposure to the city” for a legal challenge.

Ironically, one councilmember who voted against Haggard was Larry Wahl, perhaps the council’s most vocal critic of the panel’s lawsuit-generating actions.