(Written by kencraw)

I’ve been re-acquainting myself with the SAHPC court case and all that’s been going on. The part that is most frustrating to me is how long everything takes. At this point, Cal has pretty much lost another year. A ruling at this point only gives the University 4 months before football season to make progress on construction. They’ll likely defer any real progress until after football season.

In any case, just so everyone is clear, I wanted to give the complete timeline to show just how slow things are going:

• 12/11/06: Original case filed just days after EIR approved by Regents (and yes, that’s 2006)
• 1/23/07: Hearing held on Preliminary Injunction
• 1/29/07: Preliminary Injunction granted (notice how quick that was)
• 4/23/07: First documents submitted for hearings
• 7/11/07: First hearing briefs submitted
• 9/19/07: Start of “2 day hearing” to decide case (hearing delayed from original June estimate)
• 10/11/07: Final day of “2 day hearing”
• 10/26/07: Final briefs filed on hearing (90-day timer starts today, ends 1/24/08)
• 12/10/07: Judge orders additional evidence be submitted
• 12/26/07: Plaintiffs object to submitting evidence
• 1/11/08: Hearing on ojbection to additional evidence
• 1/23/08: Plaintiffs objection denied
• 2/22/08: Additional evidence submitted by both sides
• 3/20/08: Hearing on additional evidence (90-day time starts today, ends 6/18/08)

It’s now been a full 15 months since the original lawsuit was filed and all we’ve been able to do is submit our case, have a hearing, wrangle over evidence in those hearings, and just BARELY start the 90-day timer on the judge making a ruling. We’re now fully two months past the original 90-day deadline that got set aside when the judge decided she didn’t have enough information in the original hearing. A hearing that I might add was scheduled for 2 days but took nearly 3 weeks. There’s no reason the judge couldn’t pull a maneuver like that again, resetting the 90-day timer yet again.

Also note that there have yet to be any appeals or any other additional cases that could further drag this out.

How many times in one category am I allowed to say: unbelievable!