Rancho Santa Margarita Begins Setting Up City

The monumental task of creating a new government from scratch begins today inside the auditorium of the local intermediate school, where the five newly elected City Council members will convene for the first time.

From now until Jan. 1, when Rancho Santa Margarita officially becomes Orange County's 33rd city, the city's leaders must lay the groundwork for a municipality that provides services for more than 40,000 residents and handles an annual budget of as much as $7.4 million.

"We have to work on getting at least a facility, so that on Jan. 1, when people start calling the city, there is someplace to call," Councilwoman-elect Debra Lewis said.

Rancho Santa Margarita must establish a police force, create a parks and planning department, adopt city ordinances to cover everything from barking dogs to billboards, plus hire the city administrators and staff to make it all happen.

Lewis said the committee will be calling on the many friends and contacts they've made in other municipal governments during the cityhood drive to make sure they take all the necessary steps to get the city off on the right foot.

"There is no need to reinvent the wheel, so we will be calling people for advice," Lewis said.

Councilman-elect Gary Thompson said that the council has been advised to form a number of subcommittees, made up of council members and volunteers, to take on these tasks. The city also must find a city manager, secretary, clerk and an interim city attorney.

"We do not have any money at all on the first day of the city," Thompson said. "That's the interesting part. We can enter into an agreement with the employees and the owner of the facility, but it's on a promise-to-pay basis. Whoever these people are they would really be doing this at their own cost to be billed later."

The city will have a six-month grace period following incorporation during which the county will continue to provide services like planning, public works, engineering and animal control. At the end of those six months, the council will need to have agreements in place to provide each of those services.

"They've got a lot of work to do. A horrendous amount of work. They may have no idea," said City Manager Leslie Keane of nearby Laguna Woods, which in March was the most recent California city to incorporate.