LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – A California city alleges that a final supplement environmental impact statement released in November 2017 regarding a subway project is "flawed" and that the project will harm high school students.
The city of Beverly Hills filed a complaint on May 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Federal Transit Administration, United States Department of Transportation, et al. citing the National Environmental Policy Act and other counts.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff is challenging the approval of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) of a subway development in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. The suit states the project calls for a subway tunnel to run directly beneath the Beverly Hills High School campus.
The plaintiff alleges the impact statement's conclusion that "project alignment and staging areas pose no threat of harm to the high school’s campus, its students, or community members who use its recreational facilities is fundamentally flawed. The project will cause substantial harm to health and safety of its students, undermine its learning environment, impede the renovation and modernization of its campus, and threaten the viability of its historic structures and recreational facilities," the suit states.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants "improperly committed to a course of action rather than engaging in the required environmental analysis. This commitment skewed that environmental testing and analysis and resulted in a predetermined outcome," the suit states.
The plaintiff holds Federal Transit Administration, United States Department of Transportation, et al. responsible because the defendants allegedly "failed to take the required hard look at the project’s environmental impacts including the project’s geotechnical/seismic impacts; noise and vibration impacts; traffic/access impacts; air quality impacts; paleontological impacts; economic and social impacts; public health impacts and safety impacts," the suit states.
The plaintiff seeks a temporary restraining order, award of costs, award such other and further relief as the court deems just and proper. It is represented by Robert S. Perlmutter and Sara A. Clark of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP in San Francisco.
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California case number 2:18-cv-03891-FMO-JPR