Laguna Niguel : Proposal for Services District to Be Studied

A proposal to form a communitywide services district, or “junior city,” will be considered this week by the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission.

Last month, the commission heard residents debate the issue at a public hearing but voted to continue the hearing until Wednesday’s meeting because of local disagreement on what the services district’s boundaries should be.

The Board of Supervisors’ proposal, made last year after a request by the Laguna Niguel Community Council, would transfer responsibility for providing street-sweeping, landscaping, recreation and street-lighting services from the county to a newly formed local authority. It would also keep about $1.2 million a year in locally generated property taxes within the community. If the district is not formed, the money would be used for countywide services such as fire protection and libraries.

While the Community Council continues to support the services district proposal, some residents have spoken out in sharp opposition to the plan. Some residents of Niguel Shores, an exclusive coastal neighborhood, have proposed creating two districts--one for the inland area and another along the coast. Other residents are worried that a new district would not be able to obtain its own liability insurance--now a responsiblity of county government.

The Community Council wants to put the issue before area voters in June to keep from losing $1.2 million in the next fiscal year. For that to occur, the Local Agency Formation Commission’s five-member board would have to approve the plan on Wednesday. But Richard T. Turner, executive director of the commission, said he was recommending that the board disapprove the services district plan.

“There is so much confusion,” Turner said. “The council is not in agreement with what the board wanted, and the people in the south wanted something else. I’m in favor of a CSD (community services district) down there, but I can’t ask my commission to approve something that the parties themselves are not in agreement on. They have to decide what they want.”