Committee Campaigns for New City in the Inland Empire : But Norco May Also Have Plans for Part of 42-Square-Mile Area

Jack Gallagher wants to create a city from a handful of semi-rural communities in northwestern Riverside County.

The 56,000 residents of Mira Loma, Glen Avon, Pedley, Rubidoux, Sunnyslope, Indian Hills, Jurupa Hills and Agua Manza--spread out over 42 square miles--may not think they have much in common, but the Jurupa Study Committee, headed by Gallagher, hopes to persuade them to think otherwise.

Incorporated as a single city, the communities would retain for local services a greater share of the tax revenue that they now contribute to Riverside County, Gallagher said. “I think (the residents) are going to be surprised how much tax base there is in this area, and that much isn’t being spent in the area.”

The Jurupa Study Committee has commissioned Don King, a Rancho Cucamonga-based planner and consultant, to prepare a study of the economic feasibility of their proposed city and also city-budget projections for the next 4 1/2 years.

‘Increase Service Level’

Although his study is incomplete, King said, the proposed city would not only be fiscally solvent, but also, “based on the information I have, they should be able to significantly increase their level of services.”

If Jurupa were now a city, he said, it would generate between $2 million and $2.4 million in sales and use-taxes alone for the 1985-86 fiscal year, contributing to total city revenues exceeding $6.8 million.

Projected city expenditures, although also incomplete, would be about $6 million at current service levels, King said.

Besides a nearly $1-million budget surplus, the area’s residents would also stand to gain direct control of local land-use decisions, King said, thereby determining the area’s patterns of growth and enabling them to protect their communities’ identities.

Incorporation would also protect the communities from eventual annexation into the neighboring Riverside County cities of Norco and Riverside, a move some residents fear would perpetuate their lack of local control and further jeopardize their neighborhoods’ identities.

‘Sphere of Influence’

Piecemeal annexation by the cities, particularly that of economically desirable commercial centers, could leave the remaining residential areas without a sufficient tax base to incorporate a separate, fiscally viable city.

Although Riverside has taken no action that would indicate an interest in the area to its north, part of Mira Loma was placed in Norco’s “sphere of influence”--an area designated for likely annexation to the city--a decade ago.

Norco city officials also have expressed interest in adding to their city a prime industrial area surrounding the intersection of the Pomona Freeway and Interstate 15.

That interchange, with a major trucking terminal and rail switching yard, would be an important economic asset to the proposed city. Riverside County is already attracting industry to that area with the lure of affordable land, close rail and freeway access to Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, and proximity to the international airport in neighboring Ontario.

Growing Job Market

Residential developers point to the Inland Empire’s growing job market, the area’s rural atmosphere and the affordable prices--contrasted with those in Orange and Los Angeles counties, of homes in the picturesque valley above the Santa Ana River and below the Jurupa Mountains. Many of the area’s newer homes are built on large lots with provisions for animal-keeping. Others sit alongside green, landscaped fairways.

The area is perhaps best known, however, for the Stringfellow Acid Pits in Glen Avon, widely regarded as California’s worst toxic-waste site.

More than 35 million gallons of some of the most dangerous toxic industrial wastes were dumped legally in the Stringfellow pits before 1972.

An underground “plume” of ground water contaminated by the acid pits has been spreading through soil under Glen Avon and threatens to affect the water basin that serves half a million Southern Californians. Studies have also found radioactive contamination in domestic wells near the site.

Toxic Waste Problems

Gallagher and other Glen Avon residents have criticized county officials for failing to vigorously press the state and federal governments for a rapid cleanup of the toxic wastes.

In fact, the Stringfellow cleanup issue figured prominently in a recall drive that Gallagher led--and later dropped--last summer against Melba Dunlap, the Riverside County supervisor whose district includes the Jurupa area.

The recall campaign also alleged that Dunlap was opposed to putting the question of Jurupa cityhood to study or a vote.

Dunlap said she has remained consistently neutral on the cityhood question. “That decision will be made by the citizens out there. . . . My office door is open at any time for those in favor of incorporation as well as those opposed.”

Her advice to those who ask, however, is that Jurupa probably is not ready for cityhood. “I think it’s too soon. Its time has not yet come.”

Recall Effort Dropped

But in a Nov. 7 letter to county department heads, Dunlap asked for “each department’s cooperation in providing” information for the Jurupa Study Committee’s pending feasibility study on cityhood.

“In this manner,” Gallagher later wrote in a letter that stated he was dropping the recall effort, “Supervisor Dunlap has taken an active and supporting role in promoting a complete study and informed free choice.”

Dunlap has staunchly supported the efforts of area residents to get Stringfellow cleaned up, she said. Those efforts have resulted in state and federal appropriations totaling $56 million for the cleanup.

“Anybody who knows anything about Stringfellow knows that the county has no legal authority (and) no legal responsibility for Stringfellow,” the supervisor said. “It is out of the county’s hands.”

Gallagher said he still believes that Dunlap and other county officials have not done enough to clean up Stringfellow, however. “As a city,” he said, “we can do a lot more for getting Stringfellow cleaned up.”

Area Declared Blighted

Also on the agenda for cleanup in the new city would probably be the aging commercial strip along Mission Boulevard in Rubidoux, an area the county has already declared blighted, Gallagher said.

At the opposite end of the proposed city, near Ontario, lie the major transportation facilities that could prove to be Jurupa’s most valuable economic assets.

That area could also be valuable to neighboring Norco, which in the past year or so has placed a new emphasis on economic development to maintain both its level of public services and its fiercely defended rural life style.

For Norco to annex that area, it almost certainly would have to annex--and hence provide services to--the adjoining agricultural and residential areas of Mira Loma.

“I think the economic base is pretty much in balance with what it would cost us” to provide public services, said Norco Mayor R. L. (Dick) MacGregor.

Norco Launches Own Study

Norco, responding in large part to the Jurupa Study Committee’s original plan to include essentially all of unincorporated Riverside County north of the Santa Ana River within its proposed city limits, has commissioned its own study of the costs and benefits of annexing the territory to its north.

That study, now pending, will look at the feasibility of annexing not only Norco’s existing sphere of influence, but also the prime industrial land farther north, said Ralph (Bud) Plender, the city’s director of community development.

Although consultant King did not conduct a boundary study for the Jurupa committee, he did recommend that the committee avoid a potential battle with Norco by eliminating Norco’s sphere of influence from its proposed city limits.

Jurupa officials would stand a better chance of annexing the area later, he said, than of getting the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission to include it in “a group of communities that isn’t even sure it wants to be a city yet.”

Said Gallagher: “We had no choice but to pull back” from Norco’s sphere of influence.

Besides Norco’s economic interest in the prime industrial area farther north, some residents of the city believe that it would benefit from annexing the dairy farms and residential enclaves of Mira Loma that lie between.

If that area were subject to Norco’s strict residential zoning provisions, which call for a minimum lot size of close to half an acre, that could provide a buffer against encroachment on Norco’s equestrian-oriented life style by suburbs that are spreading southward from Chino and Ontario.

“A large area established that way would provide a certain amount of protection,” MacGregor agreed.

It could also provide space for a greatly expanded network of equestrian facilities, including trails and parks, Plender said.

Sufficient Demand

Annexation is not necessary to maintain Norco’s rural atmosphere, MacGregor added, as long as the city’s economic development programs are successful.

City officials do believe, however, that there is sufficient demand for rural-residential development in the Southland.

“The key issue to remember,” the mayor said, “is that the people (living) in that area are the ones who have to choose. It’s really their choice; it’s not Norco’s choice. . . .

“From the input I’ve gotten” from Mira Loma residents, he said, “I could say right now their inclination seems to be (for) remaining in the county or becoming part of Norco, before any other city.”

And if the annexation is economically feasible, Norco would welcome new residents and their animals.

“In effect, Norco was formed to preserve our rural, horse-keeping profile,” MacGregor said. “The citizens of this town have a strong feeling for people who want to retain their current life style.”

Life-Style Decision

The same sort of life-style decisions will figure prominently in the campaign for Jurupa cityhood, said Gallagher, who owns a printing business in Jurupa, is the father of 12 and has been a professional Santa Claus for the past 38 years.

“I think there is enough support” for cityhood, he said, “but some people are afraid of change. The horse people are afraid of condominiums and the condominium people are afraid of horses.”

To pay for King’s study, to campaign for incorporation and to cover its expenses, the study committee hopes to raise more than $30,000 from local residents.

One of those expenses is a large map of the area and an information sheet produced by the committee for distribution to area residents.

Although the map is titled “City of Jurupa,” the proposed city’s name has yet to be decided, Gallagher said. “We might have a tussle over the name, too. I don’t really know.”

History of Area

Jurupa Rancho, from which the area’s name is taken, was granted by Juan Bautista Alvarado, the 12th Mexican governor of California, to Juan Bandini in 1838, the earliest grant in Riverside County, according to local historian Don Kurz in his book “Robidoux Rancho on the Jurupa, 1947-1972: The History of Rubidoux and the Jurupa Area.”

The names of the area’s four major communities also date back many years, Kurz writes: Rubidoux to 1847; Mira Loma to 1882; Pedley to 1905, and Glen Avon to 1907.

King said his study should be finished sometime in December, , allowing the committee to circulate petitions among the area’s residents in January and February. Required public hearings could follow in May and July, and an election could be held next November.

If the incorporation is approved, the city will continue receiving services from the county until the beginning of the next fiscal year in July, 1987, but will begin collecting its share of tax revenues almost immediately, King said.