![]() LAFCO analysts estimate the new city would have an annual budget of $7.4 million in 2001, and that would hold steady until about 2009. It’s just that their tax money will be reallocated,” said Daniel Schwarz, policy analyst for the Local Agency Formation Commission, the agency responsible for approving annexations and incorporations. “No one out there is going to be paying more taxes. The new city most likely would contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement, just as other South County cities have done. Fire protection and emergency medical service would continue to be provided by the Orange County Fire Authority. The new city could assume responsibilities for police protection, animal control, community development, street lights and maintenance and general municipal administration. Still, Safranski said the new city’s greatest challenge would be the task of creating a fiscally responsible municipality from scratch. We can go to Washington, D.C.,” said Safranski, the council candidate and president of the Trabuco Canyon Water District. We can join with the other cities in South County in opposition to the airport. While state law bars cities from using public money to advocate positions on ballot measures, cityhood supporters feel that official protests from a city council would carry more weight than those from scattered homeowners groups. “Self-governance was the logical conclusion.”Ĭityhood advocates also hope incorporation would give residents a louder voice in the fight against the proposed El Toro airport. “We had a problem with the stewardship of the community that we were made aware of with the park problem and the realization that we were generating more revenue than we were receiving back in services,” Gamble said. Gamble said the final realization came after a yearlong struggle with the county about the mismanagement of parkland in the community, a problem that has left numerous sports leagues and teams scrambling for time on playing fields. “We asked the Sheriff’s Department what level of service we should be receiving and where we were at the time, and we found out that we were in fact falling behind,” Thompson said. One of the biggest worries for nearly all the residents of the community was that law enforcement would not keep up with the rapid pace of development. Jack Leonard, a member of the Rancho Santa Margarita Civic Council, said the bankruptcy sparked fears that the county was mishandling the unincorporated areas and that services would decline even further as the county struggled to regain financial solvency. ![]() The question of whether the city was receiving adequate services from the county was even more pressing after the county’s declaration of bankruptcy on Dec. ![]() “There is a certain maturity that a community reaches, and when you realize that as a community you are generating so much money you begin asking where is the money going and is it going toward services,” said Carol Gamble, another candidate who was a member of the cityhood committee. By 1995, according to Thompson, the community had reached a level of financial viability that made it sensible to begin looking into becoming an independent city. ![]() Gary Thompson, a member of the Rancho Santa Margarita Cityhood Committee and one of the 14 candidates for City Council, said the master-planned community was always designed to become self-sustaining. When it became clear that the super city was not only unpopular but a fiscal impossibility, community leaders in Rancho decided to strike out on their own. Rancho Santa Margarita’s drive for cityhood began in earnest in 1995 after the failure of the proposed “super city,” a conglomeration of nearly every unincorporated community from Las Flores to Coto de Caza. If cityhood passes, the top five finishers would become council members. Tuesday’s ballot also will include a list of City Council candidates, mostly political greenhorns-a drug-abuse counselor, a submarine maintenance manager, an officer with the county marshal’s office. If approved, Rancho Santa Margarita would officially become a city on Jan. The cityhood campaign faces no organized opposition, and local public opinion surveys have shown that the proposal has overwhelming support. The city would be home to more than 40,000 residents and would include the communities of Rancho Santa Margarita, Dove Canyon, Robinson Ranch, Trabuco Highlands, Walden and Rancho Cielo. On Tuesday, voters will be asked to decide whether Rancho Santa Margarita will become the county’s 33rd municipality. ![]()
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