Novato officials sued the North Coast Railroad Authority on Friday, seeking to derail plans for freight service through town.
The lawsuit filed in Marin Superior Court says the railroad authority failed to comply with environmental rules and bypassed state open-meeting laws. It seeks to halt plans to launch a new freight service until a comprehensive environmental review is completed.

Novato and NCRA have been at odds since the rail agency disclosed that its plan to bring freight back to the old Northwestern Pacific Railroad tracks could involve as many as 32 trains pulling up to 60 cars each, traveling up to 40 mph through Novato every week.

Novato City Manager Dan Keen said the city is asking the court to invalidate NCRA's contracts with companies involved in upgrading tracks to accommodate the trains.

"I think we have serious concerns about the whole resumption of freight," Keen said.

He said NCRA's plans have been "understated" and fail to give adequate attention to safety, traffic, noise and other problems a busy freight train line could bring to Novato.

Keen added the city sees no benefit that NCRA's freight plan offers to Novato.

The Ukiah-based NCRA has proposed starting service from Willits, initially
hauling garbage down through Sonoma County and Novato to Highway 37, where the trains would turn east and head for Napa County. It has talked about starting service next year.
NCRA executive director Mitch Stogner said Novato's lawsuit comes as no surprise.

He said he couldn't comment on specifics in the complaint because he had not yet seen the lawsuit.
But, Stogner added, Novato's lawyers have spent hours in NCRA's Ukiah offices, poring over "no fewer than 10 file drawers" of documents.
He said the cost in taxpayer dollars to have "high-priced lawyers" traveling to Ukiah and spending time combing through NCRA paperwork is "outrageous."
The lawsuit says that NCRA violated state environmental rules by chopping its rail improvement plan into small components without evaluating its cumulative impact in a comprehensive way.
Further, the suit says, the plan was crafted amid secrecy, violating state open meeting rules.
NCRA "has made a mockery of the Ralph M. Brown Act," the lawsuit asserted, referring to the state's open meeting law.
Last month, NCRA questioned whether its two Marin members, Marin Supervisor Judy Arnold and Novato Councilman Jim Leland, were legally appointed to its board. Both Arnold and Leland have been critics of NCRA's plans to resume freight service through Novato.