The California Supreme Court dealt a blow to a local government’s ability to seize water utilities on Monday, ruling that courts get the final say on whether a public utility is necessary. Apple Valley, located in San Bernardino County, California, will have to go back to the drawing board for its plans to take over the privately owned water utility, Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company.

(Subscription required) California’s Supreme Court on Monday appeared poised to order Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to return the 650,000 ballots he seized earlier this year amid a local group’s claims of election irregularities. The justices, hearing oral arguments in San Francisco in two related cases, also seemed prepared to find that the attorney general has broad constitutional authority to stop investigations like Bianco’s.

The legality of a Southern California sheriff’s seizure of about 650,000 ballots cast in last year’s redistricting election will be considered by the state Supreme Court on Monday, as oral arguments begin in two cases involving Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Bianco, a Republican who at the time was running for governor, took control of about 1,000 boxes of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters in March, after obtaining search warrants from a judge who had been a political ally.

The Court of Appeal for this district has held that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge did not abuse his discretion in striking the answer of a defendant who, over a two-year period, failed to provide meaningful answers to Form Interrogatory 15.1 seeking identification of facts and witnesses supporting his position, with the justices declaring that, under the circumstances, lesser sanctions need not have been tried first.