Opinion ID: 1189576
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Plaintiffs' Alternative Theories of Standing

Text: We reject the plaintiffs' other theories of standing: the theory that they have standing as taxpayers and the theory that they suffered injury from the Council's policy of preferential access to the leased property. We disagree with the district court and conclude that the plaintiffs do not have standing as municipal taxpayers because they have not suffered a direct dollars-and-cents injury. Doremus v. Bd. of Educ. of Hawthorne, 342 U.S. 429, 434, 72 S.Ct. 394, 96 L.Ed. 475 (1952). The plaintiffs characterize the nominal-rent leases as tax expenditures, but the Supreme Court recently made clear that a government's forgoing of revenue is not the equivalent of an expenditure. Daimler-Chrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 126 S.Ct. 1854, 1862, 164 L.Ed.2d 589 (2006). [7] The Court rested its holding in part on the fact that the plaintiff taxpayers' injury was not actual or imminent because the tax breakdesigned to stimulate the economywould not necessarily lower government revenues. Id. at 1862. Similarly, this court has held that municipal taxpayers must show an expenditure of public funds to have standing. Doe v. Madison Sch. Dist. No. 321, 177 F.3d 789, 793-97 (9th Cir.1999); Cammack v. Waihee, 932 F.2d 765, 770 (9th Cir.1991). The plaintiffs' injury is not actual or imminent because it is unclear whether San Diego loses money by charging nominal rent but requiring lessees to maintain and improve the leased property. The leases are more reasonably characterized as a potential loss of municipal revenues, but even this loss is not definite enough to create municipal taxpayer standing. There is no evidence that, if the leases were invalidated, the City would use the land to generate revenue. See Daimler-Chrysler, 126 S.Ct. at 1862 (finding the plaintiff taxpayers' alleged injury too conjectural because it depended on legislators' responses to the tax breaks in question). For example, the City's Director of Real Estate testified that [t]he City would likely seek another lessee to operate a recreational facility ... under similar terms and conditions in the existing [Youth Aquatic Center] lease ... [because the] City Council has never had a policy of using the [Youth Aquatic Center] property in a manner that maximizes the revenue that potentially could be generated by this site. [SER 4 ¶ 12.] More generally, the Director stated that the City has not historically sought to obtain market rent from nonprofit lessees of dedicated parkland. Without a definite expenditure of municipal funds, plaintiffs do not have standing as municipal taxpayers. Daimler-Chrysler, 126 S.Ct. at 1862; Cammack, 932 F.2d at 770-71. Nor can the plaintiffs claim standing on the basis of the Council's policy of granting preferential access to the Boy Scouts. Even if the Council excludes other groups in favor of Boy Scoutsa disputed fact herethe plaintiffs cannot show injury from this policy. The plaintiffs have insisted that they would not use the facilities while the Boy Scouts are lessees. The plaintiffs never contacted the Boy Scouts about using the facilities, and they admitted they knew little or nothing about the Boy Scouts' policies regarding access to the facilities. Without any plans to apply for access, the plaintiffs cannot show actual and imminent injury from a discriminatory policy of denying access. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Moreover, the injury that we have concluded the plaintiffs did suffer cannot be redressed by correcting this access policy. As long as the Council as an organization maintains policies that exclude from participation and demean people in the plaintiffs' position, no amount of evenhanded access to the leased facilities will redress the plaintiffs' injury: emotional and recreational harm arising out of the Council's control and administration of public land that the plaintiffs wish to use. It is this injury, and not the alleged Boy Scouts' policy of preferential access to the facilities it operates, that supports plaintiffs' standing to maintain their claims under the federal and state religion clauses. [8]