Lake Luciana, the proposed Pope Valley golf course flanked by more than a dozen proposed large estates, will get a second shot before the Napa County Board of Supervisors in December, this time with one supervisor abstaining from the vote.

In a surprise move Tuesday, the board voted to rescind its denial of the controversial championship golf course and to revisit the proposal on Dec. 1 at  9:30 a.m.

Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, one of three supervisors who opposed the project and one of two being accused by the developers of bias, announced that he will recuse himself from the vote and all Lake Luciana hearings going forward.

The decision to re-hear Lake Luciana was approved in a 3-1 vote. Supervisor Bill Dodd voted against it and Wagenknecht abstained.

Tuesday’s decision comes even as the county is fighting two legal battles with Lake Luciana developers William Criswell and Robert Radovan. The developers sued the Napa County in both state and federal court over what they say was a flawed and biased vote.

They say Wagenknecht’s and Supervisor Diane Dillon’s ties to the Napa Sierra Club, which opposed the project, improperly influenced their votes. The developers also allege the county violated public meetings laws in preparation for the June vote.

Developers are asking for upwards of $9 million to recoup costs associated with their failed application to build the golf course.

Both supervisors deny that their work with the Sierra Club affected their views of the project, and they maintain that their positions on the club’s political committee had nothing to do with their votes against Lake Luciana.

Wagenknecht comes under additional fire in the lawsuits for his friendship with Jim King, the former Napa County Planning Commissioner who was embroiled in scandal earlier this year over another Criswell Radovan project.

King was forced to step down from the planning commission in January. Several years ago, King asked Radovan for a consulting role on the separate Aetna Springs resort in Pope Valley. King  ultimately was denied the job. He never publicly disclosed his dealings with developers before the planning commission’s vote on Lake Luciana.

King said he believes the developers deliberately leaked the information in order to get him kicked off the commission. Criswell and Radovan deny that they did anything other than answer county officials’ questions.

Wagenknecht, a close friend of King’s, reportedly told developers that he would have a hard time voting for their project in light of the scandal. Attorneys for the developers charge that Wagenknecht’s comments prove his bias against the project. Wagenknecht claims the developers mischaracterized the conversation.

On Tuesday, Wagenknecht reiterated that he believes the allegations of bias are false. But, he said, “I believe it is best if I decline to continue to participate in any future board discussion of the Lake Luciana project.”

Dillon did not recuse herself from Lake Luciana, saying her involvement with the Sierra Club is less central to the controversy than Wagenknecht’s friendship with King.

“I think that we’re in a whole new world if a judge is going to say that you’re biased because you belong to a national organization,” she said.

Both Dillon and Wagenknecht are up for re-election next year. Supervisor Keith Caldwell, the third vote in a 3-2 vote against Lake Luciana, comes away virtually unscathed in both lawsuits.

Counsel’s advice

Napa County Counsel Robert Westmeyer said he advised the board to re-open Lake Luciana hearings in order to remedy several alleged procedural violations and to allow the county to address developers’ concerns outside of court.

“A re-do resolves many, if not most, of those (procedural) issues,” Westmeyer said, noting that it will not address the developers’ charge that the board wrongly interpreted the county’s General Plan.

The board essentially will start the process over, re-opening public comment and voting a second time.

If all this was meant to mollify the Lake Luciana developers, it doesn’t appear to have worked.

Attorneys for the developers say a re-hearing further violates county code and doesn’t address the issues raised in the lawsuits.

“If you’re biased the first time, you can’t be unbiased the second time,” said Michael Durkee, a Bay Area lawyer representing the developers.

Durkee added that Tuesday’s vote to re-hear the project shows that the board knows it was wrong the first time around.

“It’s only after lawsuits were filed that everybody said, ‘We did nothing wrong, but let’s go fix this,’” he said. The additional costs to his clients of rehearing the matter would be added to the damages he is seeking in the lawsuit, he added.

Supervisor Mark Luce, one of the two votes in favor of Lake Luciana, said Tuesday’s decision is not an admission of error on the county’s part. “I don’t believe we’ll get a different result, but we’ll address the (procedural) issues.”

Dillon agreed.

“Why litigate issues that can be resolved without litigation?” she asked.

Dodd, who voted for the project earlier this year, voted against taking it up again now. He said the process will cost taxpayers money and cause the county embarrassment. He argued that the board should have made the decision to reconsider the project during open session rather than discussing it in the last four closed session hearings on the Lake Luciana litigation.

“Without any public review of this strategy, I think it’s wrong,” Dodd said. “It’s just an absolute sham.”

With four supervisors now voting on Lake Luciana, at least one supervisor will have to change sides to avoid a tie on Dec. 1. State law requires a majority — at least three votes in the case of a five-member board — in order to either approve or reject the proposal.

Westmeyer said it’s unclear what will happen if the Dec. 1 vote ends in a tie. Wagenknecht’s announcement marks the first time he can remember in nearly  30 years with the county that a supervisor recused himself from such a high-profile vote, he said.

It is also unclear how the Dec. 1 vote will affect the lawsuits against the county. Durkee said a decision in favor of Lake Luciana would not solve the problem, but would “be a remarkable salve for the wounds suffered.”