Court Opinion

ID: 9546228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:27.036335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:10.772205
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J., Concurring and Dissenting
I concur with part I of the majority opinion. I do so reluctantly under compulsion of our holding in Los Angeles County Transportation Com. v. Richmond (1982) 31 Cal.3d 197 [182 Cal.Rptr. 324, 643 P.2d 941]. That case, in my view, was wrongly decided; I agree with Justice Richardson’s dissent. (See Richmond at p. 209.)
I dissent from part II of the majority opinion and from the judgment. When one governmental entity shifts to another the financial responsibility for providing services, the California Constitution permits an apportionment of the transferor’s appropriations limit. This apportionment attaches “for the year in which such transfer becomes effective.” (Cal. Const., art. xm B, § 3, subd. (a).) The obvious triggering event for shifting the appropriations limit is the transfer of financial responsibility. It is just as obvious that where there has been no shift in financial responsibility, no apportionment of appropriations limit is allowed.
The majority finds that these strictures are satisfied because the financial responsibility for ending urban blight is constantly transferred to the agency. {Ante, p. 109.) I cannot agree. As the majority notes, the financial responsibility for eradicating blight was first transferred from the City of Huntington Park to the agency long ago. {Ante, p. 109.) Neither Senate Bill No. 152 (Stats. 1981, ch. 951) nor the city’s ordinance shifts any new financial responsibility to the agency.
*111All that Senate Bill No. 152 and the city’s ordinance have effected is an alternative means of financing services for which the agency already has financial responsibility. In my opinion, that is insufficient under the plain language of our Constitution to allow the city to shift part of its appropriations limit to the agency.
Accordingly, I would find that Senate Bill No. 152 and the ordinance improperly allow the agency to exceed its “total annual appropriations subject to limitation” under article XIII B, section 1, of the California Constitution and are thus unconstitutional.
I would deny the writ.