New Year Likely to Bring O.C. New City

At times, they held their breath, but after a rocky ride that started nearly five years ago, cityhood planners Wednesday all but secured Rancho Santa Margarita as Orange County’s first new city next year.

“It’s been like delivering one big baby,” Carol Gamble of the cityhood committee said after an independent state agency unanimously set boundaries for the proposed city and approved the plan for Orange County’s 33rd municipality.

Now it will be up to voters in the proposed city--Rancho Santa Margarita, Dove Canyon, Robinson Ranch, Trabuco Highlands, Walden and Rancho Cielo--to approve the incorporation in an election this November.

Previous surveys show overwhelming support from the area’s 40,000 residents, including one survey in which 85% of Robinson Ranch area respondents said they favored the plan. If approved, Rancho Santa Margarita would become a city on Jan. 1.

The cityhood effort was one of the “most complicated incorporations” in the state’s history, said Dana Smith, executive officer at the Local Agency Formation Commission, which approves cityhood applications. It was fraught with complex financial calculations and negotiations over six different proposals for boundaries, she said.

Even the last few minutes of Wednesday’s meeting were filled with anxiety as the commission considered including a nursery on the northeast edge of the area.

While cityhood advocates sat at the edge of their seats, commission members decided against including the Yasutake Sakaida Nursery because a lack of financial information would have delayed the process several more months. The commission recommended that, once incorporated, the new city annex the nursery.

After the commission’s vote, local residents sprang from their seats, crying out in joy. Many were teary-eyed.

“There’s no way to describe it. I’m just ecstatic,” said Gary Thompson, secretary of the cityhood commission. “You can’t help but get a little emotional because it’s been such a long haul. I feel so relieved.”

But not all area residents were pleased with the vote.

“My concern is the residents in Dove Canyon are disenfranchised,” said Nadine Secarea of Dove Canyon. “We feel as if it’s been thrust upon us.”

The cityhood committee recently supported a decision to add other residential communities such as Dove Canyon only after county officials agreed to contribute $200,000 a year in property taxes to offset the cost of providing services to those communities. Rancho Santa Margarita makes up about 90% of the sales tax base for the new city.

For cityhood planners, the process started in 1994, when a proposal was introduced for a “super city” that would incorporate the entire area from Foothill Ranch to Coto de Caza.

Residents in Rancho Santa Margarita have displayed a strong tie to their community with such events as block parties, Christmas lighting competitions, best margarita contests and East Coast nights.

Seeking autonomy, the grass-roots group raised $125,000 in less than three years by soliciting funds door to door every weekend and in front of local stores. A core group of about 200 volunteers consulted about every change or setback along the way.

At the heart of the effort has been a strong desire for local control over their tax dollars and their daily lives. The group also sought an intergenerational community center and increased law enforcement.

But their drive was not always popular, igniting controversy in the surrounding communities--such as Coto de Caza and Las Flores--that couldn’t incorporate without Rancho Santa Margarita’s sales tax base.

Rancho Santa Margarita’s decision to pull out of the “super city” plan still embitters many in those communities that are now left out. Coto de Caza has filed its own cityhood application, and Las Flores is pushing to become part of Mission Viejo.

Times correspondent Noaki Schwartz contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Cityhood Set for Vote

If voters in six communities support an incorporation measure, Rancho Santa Margarita will become the county’s 33rd city and the first of the year 2000. If the measure is approved, they will unite as one city on Jan. 1. The vote is scheduled for November.

Proposed city’s boundary

Rancho Santa Margarita

Dove Canyon

Robinson Ranch

Trabuco Highlands

Walden

Rancho Cielo

Source: Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO)