Court Opinion

ID: 9722816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:51:08.743954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:40.247537
License: Public Domain

BEACH, J.
I dissent.
The majority declares that “the critical issue on appeal is whether issuance of the grading permit was for a discretionary or ministerial project within the meaning of CEQA.” I respectfully disagree for I believe that a more fundamental issue and one dispositive of this case is: “Is the ordinance of the City of Glendale unconstitutional or clearly violative of any statutory prohibition?” In my view no constitutional infirmity and no violation of any statutory prohibition has been demonstrated by appellant or amicus curiae.
*825The basic fundamental law, Public Resources Code section 21080,1 clearly provides that CEQA shall apply to discretionaiy projects not to ministerial projects. In the (admittedly nonexclusive) listing of discretionary projects, section 21080, subdivision (a), does not include the issuance of a grading permit.2 The statute authorizes and provides that guidelines shall be established and adopted by the Resources Agency of California. The guidelines thus adopted by the Resources Agency, 14 California Administrative Code, section 15032, lists projects which in most instances will be deemed ministerial. Again the list is not exclusive and the issuance of a grading permit is not listed. The guidelines state:
. . The determination of what is ‘ministerial’ can most appropriately be made by the particular public agency involved based upon its analysis of its own laws .... Each public agency may, in its implementing regulations or ordinances, provide an identification or itemization of its projects and actions which are deemed ministerial under the applicable laws and ordinances.” (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 14, § 15073.)
The public agency, the City of Glendale, therefore by the combined operation of statutes and administrative guidelines is not prohibited but in fact authorized to designate what other “projects” are ministerial acts.3 The city declared by its municipal ordinance that the issuance of a grading permit is a ministerial act. (Glendale Mun. Code, 1964, as amended pt. 2, § 10(E).)
The net effect is that the act of the City of Glendale passed an ordinance which it was not prohibited from doing and which was *826contemplated by the guidelines written by the legislatively appointed agency. That exercise of its legislative power is not because of any delegation of authority to the City of Glendale by the Legislature as its subservient agency under CEQA, but because of the city’s constitutional authority to do so under its charter of 1921.4
I agree with the majority that the act of grading especially of the scope and magnitude involved at bench is clearly an activity or project which has a direct effect on the environment. I further agree that the decision of' whether or not to issue this particular grading permit viewed by any common sense standards does involve the exercise of judgment and discretion. The majority correctly lists some of the facts illustrating this. I think that reason and wisdom align themselves with the majority in determining that such grading is a significant amount of work and it affects the environment and the issuance of a grading permit for work of this magnitude requires discretion. It would be better if the ordinance did not say that it is merely a ministerial act. But, as I understand the doctrine of separation of powers, that decision is not ours to make. The Legislature has nowhere in CEQA forbidden the City of Glendale or any other municipality to decide by the legislative process what is ministerial. The Legislature could have, by preempting the field of decision with clarity of language, or perhaps by not predicating application of CEQA upon considerations or determinations of ministerial versus discretionaiy conduct or activity. But, “wisdom or folly,” it did so. What the state Legislature has constitutionally- enacted and what a municipality has thereby been permitted to supplement by its constitutionally valid enactment are matters of legislative not judicial concern.
Perhaps the acts of the secretary of the Resources Agency under the delegation provided for in section 21082 or the acts of the Office of Planning and Research under the delegation provided for in section 21083, may well be the subject of proper scrutiny under the standards of Government Code section 11374. (See Eisenberg’s W. House v. St. Bd. Equal., 72 Cal.App.2d 8 [164 P.2d 57]; Desert Environmental Conservation Assn. v. Public Utilities Com., 8 Cal.3d 739 [106 Cal.Rptr. 31, 505 P.2d 223].)
But the review of an adjudication or of a fact finding process of an administrative agency is not before us. The Legislature may properly entrust the task of filling in the details of its statutoiy scheme to an *827administrative agency. While the City of Glendale may be an “agency” for the purposes of designating persons or entities to whom CEQA refers that is not to say that it is an “agency” within the meaning of quasi-judicial/quasi-legislative administrative agencies governed by Government Code section 11374. Thus the problem before us is not one where “An unconstitutional delegation of power occurs when the Legislature confers upon an administrative agency the unrestricted authority to make fundamental policy determinations.” (Italics added.) (Clean Air Constituency v. California State Air Resources Bd., 11 Cal.3d 801, 816 [114 Cal.Rptr. 577, 523 P.2d 617]; Morris v. Williams, 67 Cal.2d 733 [63 Cal.Rptr. 689, 433 P.2d 697].) By way of illustration, People v. Department of Housing and Community Development, 45 Cal.App.3d 185 [119 Cal.Rptr. 266], is distinguishable on this basis.
People v. Department of Housing and Community Development, supra, did not involve the act of a coordinate branch of government. There the act in question was one by the State Department of Housing having the obligation of acting upon an application for issuance of a mobile home park building permit. The court there determined that issuance of the permit had both characteristics and determined that CEQA applied. In reaching that conclusion the court did not superimpose its determination over that of, and contrary to, the decision of a legislative and coordinate branch of government.
The first part of our inquiiy appears to me to be: “Did the City of Glendale have the fundamental power to pass such law?” If so, the second part of our inquiiy should be: “Is it constitutionally infirm as violative of a constitutionally protected right?” If not, then we cannot strike down or limit the statute or reconstruct it because of, or to suit, our ideas of legislative purpose.
The majority opinion attacks the content of the Glendale municipal ordinance. The holding in effect says: “Issuance of a grading permit is so clearly (or at least so often) a discretionary act (reasonable minds cannot differ) that you, Glendale, simply cannot say to the contrary.” In my view that result or effect, exceeds the scope of our authority even if in our opinion the ordinance is unsound and not helpful to the achievement or the purpose of the fundamental statute, CEQA.
What was said in Lockard v. City of Los Angeles, 33 Cal.2d 453 [202 P.2d 38, 7 A.L.R.2d 990], about the review of another municipal ordinance is apposite here.
*828“In considering the scope or nature of appellate review in a case of this type we must keep in mind the fact that the courts are examining the act of a coordinate branch of the government—the legislative—in a field in which it has paramount authority, and not reviewing the decision of a lower tribunal or of a fact-finding body. Courts have nothing to do with the wisdom of laws or regulations, and the legislative power must be upheld unless manifestly abused so as to infringe on constitutional guaranties. The duty to uphold the legislative power is as much the duty of appellate courts as it is of trial courts, and under the doctrine of separation of powers neither the trial nor appellate courts are authorized to ‘review’ legislative determinations. The only function of the courts is to determine whether the exercise of legislative power has exceeded constitutional limitations. As applied to the case at hand, the function of this court is to determine whether the record shows a reasonable basis for the action of the zoning authorities, and, if the reasonableness of the ordinance is fairly debatable, the legislative determination will not be disturbed. [Citations.]” (Lockard v. City of Los Angeles, supra, at p. 461-462.)5
Where statutory ambiguity prevails and construction is needed, there is no question but that the court performs its proper function to construe and explain words. Here, however, the Legislature did not leave the determination of ministerial versus discretionary projects for the courts alone to determine. By the process explained above, intentionally or unintentionally the Legislature left an opening in this regard with the possibility that it would be filled by the act of the municipal legislative body. That a municipal ordinance might assist in the creating of a law the fundamental outlines of which are established by the Legislature is not prohibited. The municipal council is a coordinate branch of the government. The problems posed by the case at bench illustrate the fact that the present statutory scheme is wobbly and badly in need of major repair. In an effort to assist in strengthening the statutory structure the majority and other cases would discard semantics in favor of statutory policy as the guiding light for the court’s reasoning and the court’s decision. The words of People v. Department of Housing and Community Development, supra, 45 Cal.App.3d 185, 194, are quoted: “Statutory policy, not semantics, forms the standard for segregating discretionary from ministerial functions.” The majority continues “moreover the discretionary-ministerial designation of a project is not necessarily *829determinative of this environmental impact.” I agree with this second observation but unfortunately the Legislature has used that very standard to determine the applicability of CEQA. Maybe the Legislature did not intend that all acts should be determined as one or the other but the words are clear “This division shall not apply to ministerial projects proposed to be carried out or approved by public agencies.” (§ 21080, subd. (b).)
The majority indicates that the argument, that local agencies have the prerogative to determine which projects are ministerial and hence exempt from the requirements of CEQA, “if valid would eviscerate CEQA, a result clearly not intended by the Legislature.” The majority indicates that therefore the actions of local agencies must reflect the stated intent of the enabling legislation. It is precisely because of the possible result envisioned by the majority, that the statutoiy scheme needs correction. That is however a legislative task. Even if the provision of the act did riot affirmatively authorize, nothing prohibits the city from making laws which it deems implement the statute. In seeking to answer the problems in this area the courts cannot ignore rules of judicial limitations in considering legislative acts. The objective of CEQA and the intent of the Legislature reaches far and sweeps broadly. It drastically affects long honored and established rules of ownership of property.
Where the exercise of police power is such that it significantly and drastically makes new inroads upon constitutionally protected rights of private ownership of property, that effect is as equally important a consideration for the court as is any noble purpose of the legislation.6 That consideration should persuade the court that in such case rescue from the unexpected and undesired effects of its own statutoiy scheme is the Legislature’s own job.
Justice Sullivan in his scholarly dissent in Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors, 8 Cal.3d 247, said at page 286 [104 Cal.Rptr. 761, 502 P.2d 1049]: “I, as well as the majority, am conscious of the profound need to improve and maintain the quality of California’s environment [citation], but settled principles of statutory construction cannot be set aside by the judiciary in order to achieve that high purpose.” That *830statement relative to principles of statutoiy construction, applies equally well to principles of scope of judicial power.
I would affirm the judgment of the superior court.
A petition for a rehearing was denied October 28, 1975, and the petition of the real parties in interest and respondents KirstMacDonald-Hensler for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied November 25, 1975. Clark, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Unless otherwise indicated all section references are to Public Resources Code.

As stated in the brief of the Attorney General, “The version of Assembly Bill 889 reported out by the Senate Committee on Governmental Organizations did define ministerial projects to include the issuance of grading and building permits. (A.B. 889, as amended November-16, 1972.) However, in the final version of Assembly Bill 889 the reference to grading and building permits as being ‘ministerial’ in nature was deleted. (A.B. 889, as amended November 29, 1972.) Two inferences may be drawn from this fact. One is that the Legislature considered the grading and building permits as neither wholly ministerial or wholly discretionary. The other is that the Legislature intended that the decision whether the issuance of building and grading permits was a ministerial or a discretionary act should be left to the decision of each ‘agency’ either on a case-by-case basis or by adoption of an all-inclusive rule.”

That there is no difference between an “act” such as issuing a building or grading permit—(giving a piece of paper) and a “project” as a physical activity culminating in physical change to the environment, was at least implied in Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors, 8 Cal.3d 247, at page 265 [104 Cal.Rptr. 761, 502 P.2d 1049], and unquestionably determined in Boning v. Local Agency Formation Com., 13 Cal.3d 263, at 279 [118 Cal.Rptr. 249, 529 P.2d 1017].

We judicially notice the Charter of the City of Glendale.

I acknowledge that decisions of recent years have taken much wind out of the sails of this pilot ship of judicial conduct. However, I deem it still seaworthy.

Is not all legislation presumably aimed at a worthy purpose?