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Usually regarded as a local ski area for ski buffs in Northern and Southern California, to which it is readily accessible by car, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area (“MMSA”) is preparing to come into the 21st Century with a new lodge, updated lifts, and, perhaps most important to proponents of the development, an expanded airport.  The expected transformation will be accomplished by the December 12, 2014 passage of the National Defense Authorization Act to which was attached an amendment specifically targeted at the MMSA.  The amendment provides for a land trade of over 1,500 acres of public and private property in proximate counties, for approximately 21 acres of United States Forest Service (“USFS”) land surrounding Mammoth Mountain Inn, which is currently leasing that property as the center of ski operations of the MMSA.  In addition, the Bill allows for a “cash equalization option” to facilitate the exchange, by which MMSA can make up any deficiency in the value of the property conveyed to the USFS with a cash equivalent.  
 
Most important in MMSA’s view is the expansion of the airport.  

Continue Reading Land Trade and Airport Expansion Expected to Put Mammoth Mountain on “Must Ski” Map

A long simmering point of contention between State and Federal governments in the City of San Diego is the fate of the property now occupied by the United States Navy’s Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Training Center in San Diego Bay.  The issue is whether the Federal government, having decided that a 50 year extension of its existing lease over the property is not long enough, can extinguish California’s public tidelands trust rights, granted to the State upon its admission to statehood in 1850, through condemnation of 27.54 filled acres in perpetuity; or whether, as the State claims, California’s public trust rights reemerge if the property is subsequently sold to a private party.  The question is of general importance, not only because many states hold public tidelands in trust, but also because the issue represents a test of the scope of the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, and the doctrine of federal preemption that arises from it.  On June 14, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals decided the question in United States of America v. 32.42 Acres of Land, No. 10-56568, D.C. No. 3:05-CV-01137-DMS-WMC (“California Lands”).Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Upholds Federal Preemption of State Tidelands