Lawyers for Napa County are asking a federal judge to hold off on a lawsuit filed by Pope Valley developers until a similar lawsuit plays out in state court.

Developers Robert Radovan and William Criswell hit Napa County with two lawsuits over the Napa County Board of Supervisors’ decision to reject their championship golf course proposed for Pope Valley. Criswell and Radovan sued the county in state court on Aug. 31 and in federal court one week later.

They allege they were denied a fair hearing due to a flawed process tainted with political bias. The developers are asking for $9 million to recoup costs associated with their proposal.

The Napa County Counsel’s office, tasked with defending the actions of the board of supervisors, is arguing to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White that the case belongs in state, not federal, court. They want White to either throw out the federal case or delay it until the state case is resolved.

The motion to dismiss or stay the federal lawsuit was filed on Sept. 28 by Napa County Counsel Robert Westmeyer and lawyers from the San Francisco law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 6.

“If it’s approved, federal court says, ‘We’re putting this in suspension until state court gets done,” Westmeyer said.

Mike Durkee, the Bay Area lawyer representing Lake Luciana developers, said he will ask that the federal lawsuit be allowed to proceed. “We’re going to say that the claims brought in federal court were brought there for a reason and they ought to remain in federal court,” Durkee said.

Durkee said that while some of the claims made by developers are unique to state court, others are uniquely federal. “State law does not perfectly mimic federal law. That’s why we have the federal court case,” he said.

Lawyers for the county, however, accuse developers of “forum shopping.”

“All of the claims alleged here — violations of procedural due process, equal protection and the First Amendment — Luciana could have alleged in the state action,” lawyers for the county argue in court papers. “Instead, hedging its bets, it filed half its claims in state court (including one federal constitutional claim) and half in federal.”

The lawsuits follow a June decision by the Board of Supervisors to reject Criswell and Radovan’s 18-hole championship golf course proposed for Pope Valley. The board rejected the golf course in a 3-2 vote with supervisors Diane Dillon, Brad Wagenknecht and Keith Caldwell voting against it. Supervisors Mark Luce and Bill Dodd cast their votes in favor of Lake Luciana.

Developers came back a short time later with a bevy of accusations against the board, including the claim that Dillon and Wagenknecht voted against Lake Luciana because of their affiliation with the Sierra Club, the project’s most vocal opponent. Dillon and Wagenknecht say their votes were based on their interpretation of the county’s General Plan, which prohibits urban development in agricultural areas.