Rancho Santa Fe Loses Bid to Veto Annexations

The wealthy folks of Whispering Palms want in. The wealthier folks of Rancho Santa Fe want to keep them out. On Wednesday, the two sides took their local fight 500 miles north to the state capital, where Whispering Palms won, at least for now.

Assemblyman Robert Frazee’s bill to give the proposed city of Rancho Santa Fe veto power over any attempt by Whispering Palms to become part of their town was rejected by the Assembly.

Frazee, a Carlsbad Republican, said he may try again, perhaps today, to win passage of his proposal.

But unless he does, current law will continue to rule over the boundary dispute between the two high-income communities just beyond San Diego’s northern limit.

Rancho Santa Fe residents will vote on cityhood June 2. If a majority of the residents approve, the new city will have boundaries nearly the same as the old village of Rancho Santa Fe as it was laid out in a 1927 covenant governing the area.

If Whispering Palms or any other neighboring community within the ranch’s so-called sphere of influence wants to join the city later, that decision will be up to the Local Agency Formation Commission. If there is opposition, the people of Whispering Palms, not Rancho Santa Fe, will vote on the issue.

Proponents of the bill said they fear that, without the protection spelled out in Frazee’s legislation, Rancho Santa Fe voters could eventually be overwhelmed in their own city by voters from the more densely populated areas nearby.

Kenneth A. Wood, a lawyer and proponent of incorporation, said inclusion of Whispering Palms, Fairbanks Ranch and other nearby communities within the city limits could triple the size of the new city and ruin the village’s small-town atmosphere.

“The larger and larger it becomes, the less it will be like Rancho Santa Fe,” Wood said. “If we were to incorporate, I’d like to have this on the books. Without it, I’m not that wild about” incorporation.

Whispering Palms resident Bob Richards said word of the bill’s failure was “about the best news I’ve ever heard. We thought it was a bad bill. It would harm many small communities like ours.”

Frazee’s bill would have allowed the city council of any city with less than 7,000 residents to vote on proposed annexations. The council would have to approve such boundary changes by a four-fifths majority vote. The proposed city of Rancho Santa Fe is expected to have about 4,800 residents, and there are about 120 other small California cities that would have been affected by the bill.

“My greatest fear at this point is that this one issue could be cause for the people of Rancho Santa Fe to vote against incorporation,” Frazee said. “Although I don’t want to interfere locally, I feel incorporation is probably a good idea. The bill would send signals to the voters of Rancho Santa Fe that they would have an opportunity to determine the ultimate fate of their city.”

But opponents of the bill argued that current law gives cities sufficient opportunity to oppose annexations at hearings held by the Local Agency Formation Commission. The bill’s main opponent was Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier, who took the unusual step of leading the opposition to a bill authored by a party colleague and neighbor. Mojonnier represents the Whispering Palms area.

The bill, Mojonnier said, “may be well-intentioned but it is not good government. I just want the people of Whispering Palms to have all their options available to them.”

The bill was defeated, 41-32.