Kelso shows his true colors

“Now that it has eaten the cake of acting as the State agency and been sued for violating State environmental law in State Court, the Receiver ignores its State agency status and seeks immunity in Federal Court for alleged acts under color of Federal authority.”

That’s attorney Steve Herum. Yesterday Herum, acting on behalf of the City of Stockton, County of San Joaquin and local Chamber of Commerce, filed a motion to remand to state court the local lawsuit against siting two proposed prisons hospitals outside Stockton. Federal prison receiver J. Clark Kelso had moved the venue of the lawsuit, which challenges the prison hospitals on environmental grounds, to federal court.

Kelso has acted like a state agency when it suited him and dismissed any federal obligations, saying he was acting as the state. But when challenged on state environmental law grounds, he’s suddenly Mr. Federal. Hence Herum’s line about having his cake and eating it too.

The implications go beyond the legal to the essence of this fight. Kelso prosesses a concern for the Stockton area and a willingness to work with this community to address its concerns — and, given that the state plans to dump three prison facilites on Stockton, and none elsewhere, there are plenty of concerns.

His move to federal court belies this good faith. The federal judges know little about the California Environmental Quality Act and even less about Stockton. That’s why Kelso turned to them, because their concern is for alleviating the unconstitutional prison conditions. They have scant concern for Stockton, which means they and Kelso are on the same page. 

That’s what this fight is all about: aloof authorities who seek to solve urgent state problems by substituing the heavy hand of the state for colaboration with Stockton. By trying to move the suit to a panel of federal judges hardly concerned with state-mandated environmental impact mitigations – laws that give Stockton a fair shake –  Kelso shows his true colors.