Opinion ID: 1885403
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Whether the Board acted without substantial evidence in closing VKS.

Text: ¶ 41. The Board maintains that a properly deferential review by the circuit court under § 11-51-75 would have affirmed its decision to close VKS. Falco contests this assertion. ¶ 42. We apply the same standard of review to the Board's legislative act as we apply in our review of administrative agency decisions. Barnes v. Bd. of Supervisors, DeSoto County, 553 So.2d 508, 511 (Miss.1989). Such decisions or orders are to be upheld unless the agency order was unsupported by substantial evidence; was arbitrary or capricious; was beyond the agency's scope or powers; or violated the constitutional or statutory rights of the aggrieved party. Bd. of Law Enforcement Officers Standards & Training v. Butler, 672 So.2d 1196, 1199 (Miss.1996). Under issue II, we will consider the substantial-evidence/arbitrary-and-capricious parts of this test; issues III and IV will address the legal authority for the Board's action. ¶ 43. We consider the substantial evidence requirement to have been met when the record includes such relevant evidence as reasonable minds might accept as adequate to support a conclusion, which must be more than a `mere scintilla' of evidence. Johnson v. Ferguson, 435 So.2d 1191, 1195 (Miss.1983) (citation omitted). ¶ 44. Whether a decision is arbitrary and capricious seems to have melted somewhat into the substantial evidence standard, despite the disjunctive or in the above quotation from Butler: This Court has held that `a holding which is supported by substantial evidence cannot be arbitrary and capricious.' Miss. Bureau of Narcotics v. Stacy, 817 So.2d 523, 526 (Miss.2002) (quoting McDerment v. Miss. Real Estate Comm'n, 748 So.2d 114, 117 (Miss.1999)). We have also defined fairly debatable as mutually exclusive with arbitrary and capricious. Id. at 526-27 (citing City of Biloxi v. Hilbert, 597 So.2d 1276, 1281 (Miss.1992)). ¶ 45. In discussing whether the Board's February 1999 meeting constituted a hearing, we have already recounted the nature of the Board's decision to close VKS. The Board had committed itself to funding VTR, considered it superfluous to operate two airports, and noted that FAA funding might be available for VTR but would not be forthcoming for VKS. The mayor also expressed the hope that closing VKS would free up land for industrial purposes. The Board also acted pursuant to its 1997 commitment to its VTR partners to close VKS. ¶ 46. We cannot hold that these reasons do not amount to substantial evidence in favor of closing VKS or that the Board's decision to close VKS was not fairly debatable. That decision, therefore, was neither arbitrary nor capricious. It was a step in a long-term plan that would arguably be in the city's interest. ¶ 47. Objecting to the Board's failure to consult personally with the users of VKS before reaching the decision to close it, Falco overlooks the close parallel to another case in which this Court ruled that citizens are not entitled to any right to reasonable advance notice and the opportunity to be heard before such legislative actions may be taken. In re Validation of $7,800,000 Combined Util. Sys. Revenue Bond, Gautier Util. Dist., Jackson County, 465 So.2d 1003, 1008 (Miss.1985). ¶ 48. Falco strenuously insists on the folly and imprudence of the Board's decision, an evaluation wholly irrelevant to the appellate review of the Board's decision: It is not the function of the circuit court on appeal from an administrative agency to determine whether the action of the agency is right or wrong, correct or incorrect, wise or unwise, advisable or best fitted to the situation involved. If there is substantial evidence to sustain the legal action of the legislative agency, the court will not substitute its judgment for that of the agency. County Bd. of Educ. of Alcorn County v. Parents & Custodians of Students at Rienzi Sch. Attendance Ctr., 251 Miss. 195, 208, 168 So.2d 814, 819 (1964). Power to make the order, and not the mere expediency or wisdom of having made it, is the question. Id. at 207, 168 So.2d at 819 (citation omitted). The relative merits of VKS and VTR are not a subject for second-guessing, let alone micro-management, by the courts of this state. If the Board acted foolishly, it is for the voters of the city of Vicksburg to rebuke them by the political process, not for a faction of interested parties to override the elected officials' judgment by resort to the judicial process. See Gautier, 465 So.2d at 1019 (discontent with these determinations is susceptible of redress through the political process only, saving only [the] due process right to be heard in a judicial forum on the constitutionality and ultra vires question). Indeed, members of municipal and county governing boards are even more directly accountable to the voters than are the members of most administrative agencies. [6] ¶ 49. We thus hold that the circuit court erred in finding that the Board acted arbitrarily and capriciously in ordering VKS closed.