Group Seeks Annexation of South Laguna by Laguna Beach

Threatened by a possible merger with a newly forming, mostly inland city, leaders of the small, unincorporated beach community of South Laguna have asked the City of Laguna Beach to annex their area instead.

Ironically, the annexation request follows years of protest by many South Laguna residents that they wanted no part of Laguna Beach or any other city. Despite repeated annexation bids by Laguna Beach, the area’s 24,000 residents previously have opted to keep their separate identity as a quiet community with a handful of small businesses--and flowing bougainvillea vines--for about 70 years.

In 1982, for example, some South Laguna residents proposed a merger with Laguna Beach. The city was willing but the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, which must approve annexations, turned it down. Too many South Laguna residents opposed the idea, LAFCO Executive Director Richard Turner said.

But now, leaders of the South Laguna Civic Assn. want to join Laguna Beach because of what they fear would be a far worse fate--annexation by the newly forming city of Laguna Niguel, which already has an application pending before LAFCO.

Thomas E. Slattery of the South Laguna Civic Assn. board said: “We’ve found ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We’d kind of like to stay the way we are. We have an identity and excellent county services--and an excellent specific plan.”

But LAFCO officials appear intent on merging South Laguna into a neighboring city sometime soon, and its residents would prefer to be part of coastal, “artsy” Laguna Beach rather than the sprawling Laguna Niguel community of mostly new housing tracts, Slattery said.

“No one in South Laguna wants to become part of Laguna Niguel. We don’t identify with that inland city at all,” he said.

LAFCO is scheduled to review several proposals for new cities in south Orange County on May 6. At LAFCO’s March 4 meeting, Laguna Niguel’s incorporation task force proposed including South Laguna and other adjacent sites in its new city, but no there was no decision.

Although South Laguna leaders objected, LAFCO commissioners said they might be inclined to accept Laguna Niguel’s plan rather than retain pockets of unincorporated land. Under state law, one of LAFCO’s missions is to eliminate such pockets, where feasible.

At their March 5 meeting, South Laguna association directors polled the audience, which voted 116 to 2 for merging with Laguna Beach. A month earlier, in a mail ballot, South Laguna residents had voted 756 to 24 against merging with Laguna Niguel.

Slattery said that the May 6 date of the LAFCO hearing left too little time for his group to poll the entire community on the question of joining Laguna Beach.

But one resident said he resented being disenfranchised and asked how the civic association “can take a stand without polling membership.”

Slattery said, however, that he believes South Laguna will present a united front at Laguna Beach’s council meeting Tuesday.

His group’s presentation will be watched closely by council members and Turner, LAFCO’s executive director, who said he wants to “see just how serious they are. . . . I want to find out if talk of this is really serious or just a smoke screen” to evade being incorporated with Laguna Niguel and then later remain as an unincorporated community.

Dan Kenney, the pro-tem mayor of Laguna Beach, is also skeptical. He recalled the 1982 annexation effort and said he eventually disagreed with the council majority and decided to oppose the annexation because too many South Laguna residents were opposed. Kenney said his feeling then was, “If you don’t want us, we don’t want you in Laguna.”

Kenney conceded that South Laguna’s identity is closer to that of Laguna Beach than the much larger Laguna Niguel. If his city were to annex South Laguna, “it would give Laguna Beach a chance to protect and kind of model things on the scale of Laguna and that’s pretty attractive,” he said.

Still, Kenney said he isn’t sure Laguna Beach wants to nearly double its size by annexing its unincorporated southern neighbor. He said his vote will “depend on what I hear Tuesday night.”