ROW Legal Team and Co-Defendants, Brand, Moffat, Nehrenheim and Craig
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1/23/2024
Rescue Our Waterfront President Wayne Craig
Yesterday a court hearing was held to review the motion filed by Redondo Beach Waterfront and CenterCal properties principals Fred Bruning and Jean Paul Wardy. The motion was to compel Bill Brand, Nils Nehrenheim, Wayne Craig and the ROW PAC to pay $164,560 for their legal expenses after the trial judge (not us) called them out for being behind the sham lawsuit using shills Chris Voisey and Arnette Travis.
The good news is they lost! Again!
While we sincerely thank our legal team for this victory, a special acknowledgement and congratulations must be made to attorney Jeanne Zimmer. The judge literally quoted Zimmer’s response brief word for word clearly using it as the basis for the court ruling against Bruning and Wardy. This is a significant win for us, but Bruning and Wardy can still appeal the ruling.
The basis for this latest motion was the result of CenterCal via shills filing a lawsuit against us in 2017. In 2018 the trial judge vindicated us of any wrongdoing and awarded us $896,896 in what experts have repeatedly stated was a SLAPP lawsuit.
Despite being the prevailing party after trial, we haven’t received reimbursement for our legal expenses. The reason is Redondo Beach Waterfront (aka CenterCal Properties) was able to use their vast financial resources to appeal and squirm out of paying. We are pleased with this big win but it’s important to remember that counting the great news yesterday we have only prevailed in 2 out of 5 court rulings. These were clearing us of any wrongdoing in 2017 and the motion for fees ruled yesterday. To repeat, we WON the case. That has never changed. But we have been dragged through the court system by a vindictive developer who was able to overturn the judgments for them to pay OUR attorney fees for THEIR frivolous lawsuit.
It’s also important to remember that the successful efforts made by residents to stop the CenterCal Harbor Mall has resulted in the BeachLife Festival, the new Harbor Amenities Plan and developing major improvements to Seaside Lagoon.
Unfortunately, the battle isn’t over and the cost to throw motions like this out of court requires your help to stop their financial assault on Redondo Beach residents.
Please donate at the link below
We are getting closer to our goal but ROW still needs your help to defend Redondo Beach residents from unscrupulous developers and crony corruption, and to help build the future you voted for at the ballot box, so please donate Here.