Laguna Hills Ca Incorporation

The meeting was starting to degenerate into name-calling. One resident labeled the opposition "a flock of locusts," which prompted a loud chorus of boos. He then shot back: "Sometimes I think I live in Jersey City." It was not the kind of behavior associated with normally serene Leisure World, a community of 21,000 where life tends to revolve around the golf course and shuffleboard court.

Weary of a dead-end battle with the county over annexation of North Laguna Hills, city officials said they will travel to Sacramento today to seek relief through state lawmakers. For nine months, city and county negotiators have butted heads over the annexation, which has been made a top priority by the City Council and many community groups in the 736-acre unincorporated area. Both sides say the talks have been terse and unproductive. The key stumbling block has been money.

Laguna Hills cityhood proponents are scheduled to meet with the county's Local Agency Formation Commission on May 2 to discuss their application to form the county's 30th city out of an eight-square-mile section anchored by the Laguna Hills Mall. The pro-cityhood group, Citizens to Save Laguna Hills, will then face a May 23 formal hearing before LAFCO, chairwoman Ellen Martin said Thursday.

In a culmination of years of grass-roots efforts, two cities were officially created in Orange County Friday, and two women who had been leaders in the incorporation drives were chosen their first mayors. Laguna Hills became the county's 30th city and, 90 minutes later, neighboring Lake Forest became the 31st, continuing an incorporation boom that has seen the South County produce five new cities within four years.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday reluctantly approved cityhood elections in Laguna Hills and El Toro but vowed to fight future incorporations for fear that they will further divert vital revenue from county government. If the March 5 referendums pass, voters in the two districts would create Orange County's 30th and 31st cities, with 23,000 residents in Laguna Hills and 58,000 in El Toro.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors this week is expected to schedule two South County elections that could drain the county's budget by millions of dollars each year. But while the county budget ax is expected to swing more wildly in the coming months as revenue shortfalls worsen, the supervisors are legally and politically impotent to stop the democracy movement--the incorporation of two new cities--that officials say will create a larger financial burden on the county.

When officials moved last month to slow the rush toward cityhood of two South County communities, they patched a hole in county government's listing ship of state, but they didn't fix it permanently. For each time residents of unincorporated Orange County band together and successfully start a new city, it comes with a hefty price tag for county government.

If Laguna Hills became a city, it would have the financial ability to pay for its own police, fire department, animal control and library services without the county's help, according to a study presented to the Local Agency Formation Commission this week. Ellen Martin, co-chairman of the Citizens to Save Laguna Hills, said the latest study commissioned by her group proves that the proposed city of Laguna Hills is feasible.

Warning that $40 million in state budget cuts already have Orange County "on a collision course" with financial disaster, Supervisor Don R. Roth made a dramatic plea Wednesday to block formation of two new South County cities, saying it would bleed another $10 million from county coffers. Despite Roth's warnings of county government layoffs and further cutbacks in public health care in the next fiscal year, his fellow members of the Local Agency Formation Commission rejected his appeal.

The fast-growing areas of south Orange County took another step toward urbanization and self-rule Wednesday when the Local Agency Formation Commission cleared the way for El Toro and Laguna Hills to become the county's newest cities. Meeting in Santa Ana, the LAFCO board voted 4 to 0 with one abstention to let the voters decide if El Toro and Laguna Hills should become the latest South County areas to create their own city councils to deal with local affairs.

Since voting overwhelmingly for cityhood in March, the residents of Laguna Hills and Lake Forest have been preparing for today when, with a brandishing of flags and musical fanfare, they will officially become the 30th and 31st cities in Orange County. Historians will note that on this day their city councils were sworn in, mayors were picked from among their ranks and municipal codes were passed into law.

Bruce Channing, the new city manager of Laguna Hills, has literally been running the city from the trunk of his car for the last three months. But sometime next week, Channing expects to have a telephone, desk and file cabinets moved into 9,000 square feet of commercial space that the city is leasing for its city hall at 25201 Paseo de Alicia. On inauguration day, the place is just a few days shy of being ready for its full-time occupants.

Faced with the task of setting up a new city government without the legal authority to collect revenues until Dec. 20, the City Council-elect of Lake Forest heard Thursday from Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez that the county may be able to provide some financial assistance during the transition period.

With voter approval in hand, leaders of the two future south Orange County cities of Laguna Hills and El Toro on Wednesday found a new problem. How do you set up your new governments and hire key city staffers without the legal authority to do so until Dec. 20, when incorporation becomes official? "As a City Council, we have no money and no authority to do anything, and yet we have to go out and set this up," Laguna Hills Councilman-elect Joel Lautenschleger said.

Rallying to a cry of "local control," citizens in El Toro and Laguna Hills appeared to be declaring independence from Orange County government Tuesday in referendums to form the county's 30th and 31st cities. "We were confident cityhood would win, but we never wanted to take anything for granted," Ellen Martin, chairwoman of Citizens to Save Laguna Hills, said as early returns showed cityhood winning overwhelming approval.

Craig Scott was elected twice to city councils that never existed. The 47-year-old Laguna Hills attorney first won a council seat on the proposed city of Saddleback Valley in November, 1988, but the creation of the city itself was rejected by a a 2-1 margin. Last year, Scott won a council seat again, this one on a proposed city of Laguna Hills. And once again, the cityhood measure was voted down, leaving Scott with a victory but no city to serve.

Proponents of a measure to create Orange County's 30th city must provide additional proof that the proposed eight-square-mile city of Laguna Hills will be financially secure before the issue can go before the voters, the chairman of the Local Agency Formation Commission said Wednesday. During an afternoon hearing, leaders of the pro-cityhood movement were told to provide further financial information by a June 20 hearing.

Rallying to a cry of local control, citizens in El Toro, Laguna Hills and Calabasas declared their independence from county governments Tuesday. "It's overwhelming; the culmination of so many years," said new Calabasas City Councilman Marvin Lopata, who served as treasurer of the committee to make the community Los Angeles County's 88th municipality. "My God, it's here. We are a city."

As she stood before the Board of Supervisors last week, Ellen Martin knew that her efforts to protect the unincorporated community of Laguna Hills from a proposed development by the Mission Viejo Co. were hopeless. And just as she expected, the board ruled against Laguna Hills residents and in favor of the developer. Maybe if Laguna Hills were its own city, she said afterward, it would have had more political clout to take on the supervisors.