Water District Withdraws From Lawsuit Over Ritter Ranch Agreement

Palmdale Water District directors have decided to withdraw from a lawsuit against Los Angeles County over an agreement to supply water to the 7,200-home Ritter Ranch development in west Palmdale.

Although the suit will not be dropped as a result of PWD pulling out, it does remove the only public agency from the list of plaintiffs. The remaining plaintiffs are the Leona Valley and Antelope Acres town councils.

While that was good news for Ritter Park Associates, the developer received other less positive news involving the three lawsuits filed against it a year ago.

The referee judge hearing the case, retired Judge A. R. Early, rejected Ritter Park Associates’ offer to pay the cost of a staff for him after the Los Angeles County Superior Court presiding judge said the court would not provide one.

Early, who had been assigned to the suits after Lancaster Superior Court Judge Haig Kehiayan said he did not have time to handle them, held a hearing last month on the suit in which the Leona Valley Town Council, a plaintiff in all three cases, alleges that the Ritter Ranch environmental impact report is inadequate. Early later learned that he would not be supplied a staff to deal with the matters and resigned.

In an effort to get a decision in the case that had been heard, Ritter Park agreed to pay for the judge’s staff. The Leona Valley Town Council, the plaintiff in the case, agreed to Ritter’s offer. But Early declined, saying he feared that if his decision favored Ritter Park, the town council would appeal on the basis that the developer paid the full court costs.

Kehiayan declined to say how the cases would be handled, but said he would not hear them.

The second suit, filed by Leona Valley, contends that the city of Palmdale approved the Ritter Ranch development based on an outdated General Plan.

Palmdale Water District was a co-plaintiff in the third suit, filed against Los Angeles County over a water service agreement it entered into with Ritter Park to serve that development and others.

John Sidwell, a PWD director, said the water district got involved in the suit because of concerns about what impact the oversized pipeline could have on local ground-water resources. After eight months of negotiations, PWD and the county reached an agreement this month for the Antelope Valley waterworks districts to use 80% imported water and 20% ground water.