Lake Luciana developers hit Napa County with a second lawsuit Monday, this time in federal court.

Developers are asking for upwards of $9 million to recoup costs associated with the failed Lake Luciana championship golf course proposed for Pope Valley.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors rejected the proposal in June in a 3-2 vote, with supervisors Brad Wagenknecht, Diane Dillon and Keith Caldwell voting against it. Developers William Criswell and Robert Radovan, in their lawsuits, have singled out supervisors Dillon and Wagenknecht in their official as well as unofficial capacities.

Dillon and Wagenknecht, both slow-growth advocates, are up for re-election next year.

This is the second lawsuit filed by Criswell and Radovan against the county over Lake Luciana. The developers also sued the county in Napa County Superior Court last week.

Lawyers for the developers allege that the board arbitrarily denied Lake Luciana during a flawed process tainted with personal bias.

First, they charge that Dillon and Wagenknecht served on a political committee of the local Sierra Club, the golf course’s principal opponent. They then claim the supervisors should have disclosed the information and recused themselves from the vote.

Both Dillon and Wagenknecht say their roles on the Sierra Club committee were minimal and deny that the activity affected the outcome of their votes.

Further, lawyers claim that Wagenknecht blamed Luciana developers for former Planning Commissioner Jim King’s ouster earlier this year.

King admitted that he sought work from Criswell and Radovan on the separate Aetna Springs project, but was eventually turned down and never disclosed his negotiations with developers. In January, King was asked to resign from the planning commission just before the commission was scheduled to vote on Lake Luciana. King was a vocal opponent of the project.

King later accused Criswell and Radovan of seeking to have him removed from the planning commission, but developers deny their involvement.

In the lawsuit filed Monday, lawyers for developers contend that the board rejected their golf course as “retaliation against Luciana for responding to (the county’s) inquiries regarding Commissioner King’s unlawful quid pro quo proposal.”

They claim that Wagenknecht in particular was unfairly biased against Lake Luciana because of his close friendship with King.

“Supervisor Wagenknecht told Luciana that he blamed them for the events leading to Commissioner King’s resignation, and that he would therefore have a hard time supporting the Luciana project, even though Luciana never demanded that King be removed from office,” lawyers for Lake Luciana allege.

Wagenknecht has said that is a mischaracterization of his statement and that his friendship with King had nothing to do with his vote against Lake Luciana. He said the lawsuits against the county are designed as political ammunition.

“The types of things that they’re asking in there, that they’re accusing us of, are not legal issues necessarily,” Wagenknecht said. “They’re more political issues — who we work with in getting information from and who we’re friends with, those types of things. It also doesn’t look at the whole realm of where we get our information and who our friends are. It just looks at who they’re critical of.”

Wagenknecht adds that it is no coincidence that the developers are going after the two slow-growth supervisors up for re-election next year.

“All the focus of the lawsuits and the investigations have been directed at Diane and I, and there are three of us (who voted against Lake Luciana),” Wagenknecht said. “The two that happen to be up for re-election have been the focus of the attention, and the one that’s on the board for a few more years after this they haven’t focused on.”

Radovan denied that the lawsuits have anything to do with the coming elections.

“I think the lawsuits kind of speak for themselves,” Radovan said.

But Wagenknecht said developers are attempting to set the stage so they can get their project approved at a later date, even if they can’t push it through with a lawsuit.

“I don’t think this is going to go quietly in the night,” Wagenknecht said. “I think it’s going to march through next year’s election cycle. … After the election cycle, if they haven’t been successful in (unseating) either Diane or myself, then I can see them looking hard at the resources they have up there and trying to figure out something … that actually has a chance of passing.”

Wagenknecht added, “There potentially is a right project for the Pope Valley area.”

Radovan would not say whether developers intend to bring Lake Luciana back for another vote.

“It’s really hard to say,” he said.

In the meantime, Napa County Counsel Robert Westmeyer said Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger will represent the county in the lawsuit. The San Francisco-based firm defended Napa County years ago when it came under fire after voters approved the slow-growth Measure J. At a minimum, the lawsuit could cost Napa County between $200,000 and $400,000, he said.

He adds that the two lawsuits filed by Lake Luciana could wind up being consolidated into one.

“I don’t think it’s very likely that we’ll be litigating the same issues in state court while simultaneously litigating the issues in federal court,” Westmeyer said.