SANDPOINT - A 1st District judge again declined on Friday to grant a preliminary injunction to Priest Lake cottage site lessees.

More than 70 cottage site lessees moved stop the Idaho Department of Lands from using recent appraisals to set lease payments, minimum bids or establish the value of improvements to the cottage sites.

The lessees argued that they have a constitutionally protected right to renew their cottage site leases - in essence a property right in the next lease.

Judge Barbara Buchanan held in June that the due-process clause in the Constitution does not create substantive rights in property.

The lessees moved for reconsideration and asked the court for an injunction that would preserve the status quo, according to court documents. The state opposed the move, emphasizing that the lessees still have the right to renew their leases and have therefore been deprived of nothing.

Deputy Attorney General Steve Strack argued that the lessees are angling for long-term leases instead of year-long ones. He further argued that a disagreement over lease terms did not amount to deprivation, court records indicate.

After taking in the respective arguments, Buchanan stood by her earlier ruling, finding that the lessees have not sufficiently established that they hold any state law property right to renew their leases. She also noted that the lessees were asking for extraordinary relief by seeking to enjoin the Land Board from carrying out its duties to manage endowment lands in manner that secures the maximum long-term financial benefit to the state.

Although the preliminary injunction was denied, the case remains pending.

Buchanan's ruling came a day after nearly 60 state-owned lease lots at Priest Lake were auctioned off in Coeur d'Alene. Almost all of the lots wound up in the hands of the people who had leased them for years.

The auction raised more than $26 million for Idaho's public school endowment.