Katherine Burnworth is a City of Imperial council member. The Imperial Valley Data Center site is in unincorporated Imperial County — not within the City of Imperial’s boundaries, not subject to the city’s land use authority, not part of the territory that Burnworth was elected to represent.
This jurisdictional gap is not a technicality. It is the central fact that defines the nature of the campaign against the IVDC. Burnworth’s opposition to the project — and the city’s lawsuit, and the alleged coordination with CCV and IID insiders that the federal complaint describes — is not a council member exercising legitimate authority over development in her community. It is a political official inserting herself into a decision that a different government body made, through a different legal process, on land that is not in her jurisdiction.
The question the federal lawsuit forces into the open is why — and whether that why involves conduct that violates the civil rights of the developer and the economic rights of the community.
What the Federal Complaint Alleges
The IVCM complaint identifies Burnworth as the alleged coordinator of a broader obstruction campaign — a coalition that, according to the complaint, included the City of Imperial, CCV’s Luis Olmedo, and IID insiders with ties to Z-Global. The alleged goal was to force the project into a CEQA review process it was legally exempt from, thereby creating the legal leverage necessary to either kill the project or extract a settlement.
The specific allegations against Burnworth include: coordinating with Olmedo to organize and amplify opposition, using her city council position to direct city resources toward litigation against the county project, and engaging in conduct designed to retaliate against the developer for his public criticism of the city’s actions and his decision to move the project to county jurisdiction.
These are serious allegations. They will be tested in federal discovery and, if the case proceeds, at trial. The defendants will have full opportunity to contest them. But the filing itself — the fact that a developer spent the resources to put these specific names and specific allegations into a federal civil rights complaint — represents a significant escalation of the consequences that come with leading this kind of campaign.
The Political Calculus
Why would a city council member organize opposition to a project outside her jurisdiction? The political logic is not hard to identify. Opposition to a large outside developer — a “wartime developer” from Huntington Beach, bringing $10 billion to change the face of the region — can be politically profitable in a community where skepticism of outside interests has historical foundation.
The narrative writes itself: a well-funded outside developer trying to impose a massive industrial facility on the region, and a local official standing up to protect the community. It does not matter that the community in question — unincorporated Imperial County — is different from the city whose residents elected Burnworth. It does not matter that the project was approved through a legitimate process by the county government that actually has jurisdiction. The political narrative of local defender against outside interests is effective regardless of these inconvenient details.
What it costs is harder to see: the 1,688 union jobs that haven’t been filled, the $28.75 million in annual tax revenue that hasn’t reached the schools, the water recycling project that was blocked, the federal civil rights lawsuit that will cost the city and its officials time and money and potential personal liability.
The Personal Liability Question
The federal lawsuit names Burnworth individually, not just in her official capacity. Claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 can expose individual officials to personal financial liability for constitutional violations. Cities typically indemnify their officials for acts taken within the scope of their authority — but conduct that falls outside official authority, or that constitutes deliberate constitutional violations, can create personal exposure that indemnification does not cover.
The prospect of personal financial liability does not appear to have deterred the obstruction campaign. But it does change the calculus for any official considering whether to continue or escalate it. The federal lawsuit is designed, in part, to impose costs on the individuals making obstruction decisions — costs that make those decisions more expensive than continuing them is worth.
Whether that calculus lands is a question the federal courts will eventually help answer. In the meantime, the residents of the City of Imperial — who are paying for the city’s litigation expenses — are entitled to ask their council member what she has accomplished with their money, and at what cost.