Now the Hard Part--the Nuts and Bolts of Cityhood

As the giddy excitement of victory began to ebb Wednesday, officials of San Diego County’s two newest cities--Solana Beach and Encinitas--put aside their party hats and began to contemplate the future.

Now, they realized, comes the hard part.

While the twin incorporation campaigns were long and bitterly contested, newly elected leaders of the two neighboring cities predicted that the task of actually forming their infant governments and tackling residents’ myriad concerns will be considerably more challenging.

“During the campaign, we were playing checkers,” said Gerald Steel, an energy consultant and one of five members elected to the Encinitas City Council. “Now, we move into the game of chess.”

Early, key moves by the city officials will be to increase the level of services that the residents receive from the county for their tax dollars, and to remake the blueprints that govern the area’s growth, according to interviews with leaders of the new cities.

“There is a message here and it’s a simple one: Enough is enough,” said Margaret Schlesinger, who received the most votes in Solana Beach and thus is expected to be appointed mayor. “The bulldozers are everywhere, growth is explosive. The people have shown us they’re ready for local control.”

In both communities, Tuesday marked the third time in 12 years that residents have been asked to vote on incorporation, and in both areas cityhood won hearty support.

Voters in what was formerly known as San Dieguito approved, 69% to 31%, a measure creating the new city of Encinitas from the towns of Cardiff, Encinitas, Leucadia and Olivenhain. The new city--voters picked the name of Encinitas over San Dieguito and Rancho San Elijo--encompasses about 26 square miles and is home to about 44,000 people.

In Solana Beach, home rule was endorsed by 64% of the voters, according to unofficial election returns. Solana Beach covers a little more than four square miles and has a population of about 14,000.

Marjorie Gaines, a housewife and slow-growth activist, was the top vote-getter in Encinitas--receiving 14% of the ballots cast--and probably will be named mayor.

Also elected to the Encinitas City Council, from a field of 16 candidates, were Rick Shea, a probation officer and president of the Leucadia-Encinitas Town Council; Steel, who has served as chairman of the San Dieguito Citizens’ Planning Group; Anne Omsted, co-founder of the Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation, and Greg Luke, a civil engineer.

Joining Schlesinger on the Solana Beach council will be Marion Dodson, a property manager and Solana Beach School District trustee; Jack Moore, a retired Air Force colonel; Richard Hendlin, an attorney, and Celine Olson, a housewife and former member of the Solana Beach Town Council.

In Solana Beach, 52% of the registered voters turned out; in Encinitas, 51% cast ballots. On a related issue, voters in both cities favored the future election of council members at large rather than by district.

Savoring their success Wednesday, founding leaders of the new cities said they are eager to make good on campaign pledges to slow growth, improve the quality of development and provide residents with more bang for their tax bucks. Apparently, their constituents are also eager to see them get to work.

“I’ve already had my first complaint,” Councilwoman Olson said. “My phone rang at 9 a.m. and it was someone telling me I’ve got to do something about a derelict building in town. I told her to write it up and bring it to the first council meeting.”

Schlesinger, too, already feels the pressure of her constituents. Walking precincts, she fielded complaints ranging from “the terrible growth rate, rampant weeds and potholed streets to bug problems and the need for speed bumps on my street.”

“There’s no shortage of issues for us to get started on,” she said.

But before the new councils can sink their teeth into such tasks, they’ve got some less-glamorous housekeeping chores to do.

Where should City Hall be? When will council meetings be held? Who will the city manager be?

These matters constitute imperative nuts-and-bolts issues that will consume much of the councils’ time in the early months. After all, the city leaders will be building new municipal governments--the county’s 17th and 18th--from the ground up.

“It is a very significant challenge and a fundamental change for these communities,” said Michael Ott, a senior analyst with the Local Agency Formation Commission, which must approve all incorporations before they appear on the ballot. “There is a ton of work to be done and no time should be wasted.”

Solana Beach, in particular, must move quickly; that city’s leaders take over the reins from the county Board of Supervisors July 1. Encinitas officially becomes a city Oct. 1.

On Saturday, the Solana Beach Town Council is sponsoring a seminar for city officials, featuring top personnel from other municipalities--Poway and Lemon Grove among them--that are of similar size or were recently incorporated.

According to Ott, assistance is available from other corners as well. The California League of Cities has published a guide for newly formed cities that outlines step-by-step start-up procedures, from the installation ceremony to business matters that must be addressed at the first council meeting.

In addition, the League of Cities has a register of experts and retired officials throughout the state who are qualified and willing to serve as interim city managers while the fledgling governments get on their feet.

These so-called “range riders” can “fill in in a pinch, providing guidance and hiring consultants who may be needed to take care of planning and financial matters until the city assembles its own staff,” Ott said.

Another form of assistance is provided by the county. Even after the new cities assume decision-making power and begin receiving tax revenue, the county will continue to provide them with services through June 30, 1987. The arrangement is designed to give the municipalities time to hire their own staffs and build a financial cushion.

“The idea is not to shove them entirely out of the nest right away,” Ott said, adding that new cities often contract with the county for services beyond that first year.

Reflecting on their success Wednesday, incorporation proponents credited the victories to the public’s mounting concerns over growth and the steady toll that development has taken on the quality of life in the region’s once-peaceful neighborhoods.

“I think people finally saw with their own eyes the kind of junk the Board of Supervisors was sticking up here,” said Omsted, a Leucadia resident. “Our first order of business should be to deal with the mess the county left us. It will be so exciting to finally have democracy after so many years of serfdom.”

Opponents of cityhood, who argued that a new city would be a fiscal failure and would force out agriculture, were hard-pressed to explain their resounding defeat. But they seemed philosophical about the turn of events.

Erwin Mojonnier, an Encinitas flower grower who led the anti-incorporation drive, said he had already pledged his support to the new city and offered to serve as a liaison between the council and the flower-growing community.

Down the highway in Solana Beach, cityhood foe Charles Brass--a veteran of three anti-incorporation campaigns--had a different reaction, vowing facetiously to declare his four-acre homestead an unincorporated county zone.

“Well, we got skunked, so I guess I’m not a civic leader any more, I’m a civic loser,” said Brass, who spent much of Wednesday scraping anti-incorporation stickers off his cars and closing the headquarters of his group, Stop Inc.

“My wife vowed that we’d move to Cody, Wyo., if this thing passed, but I think we’ll stay put. Guess I’ll just slink into the foliage and see just how well that City Council does.”