Panel to Vote on Cityhood for Dana Point

The harbor community of Dana Point could become a sprawling coastal city depending on the vote today by members of Orange County’s Local Agency Formation Commission.

On Tuesday, the five commissioners, who set boundaries for cities, put off until today a decision on incorporation for Dana Point. But before they did, four of them outraged Laguna Niguel residents by proposing that five unincorporated coastal subdivisions--Monarch Bay, Monarch Terrace, Monarch Beach, Emerald Ridge and Niguel Shores--be included in the new city of Dana Point.

Laguna Niguel residents have an incorporation proposal of their own, also scheduled to be considered today, which includes the same five subdivisions within its boundaries. If they were sliced away, the mostly inland Laguna Niguel would be landlocked.

Also Tuesday, commission Chairman Phillip R. Schwartze asked his colleagues to consider even wider boundaries that would include Laguna Niguel within the new city of Dana Point, making it the third- or fourth-largest city in Orange County.

Pat Bates, president of the Laguna Niguel Community Council and a leader of that community’s incorporation drive, said she was “incredulous” that commissioners were suddenly interested in a coastal city.

“There’s been no petition filed. Ours is in place with 5,600 signatures. There’s been no feasibility study, no staff report . . . no public notice of hearings on these dramatic boundary changes,” Bates said.

Commissioner Evelyn Hart said she was undecided, but Commissioners Schwartze, Donald A. Holt Jr., Roger R. Stanton and Thomas F. Riley indicated that they were impressed with polls from a newly formed group called Local Taxpayers for Local Control that is against inclusion in Laguna Niguel.

The group’s polls showed that 90% to 100% of residents in the five coastal communities would join Dana Point but objected to being part of Laguna Niguel. On Tuesday, Laguna Niguel residents claimed that the survey was biased and that responses not favorable to the group’s cause were thrown away.

As the hearing ended, Stanton suggested that LAFCO might include the five disputed communities on November ballot measures for both Laguna Niguel and Dana Point so “residents of (the disputed) area would have the mechanism of choosing which community they are part of.”

Judy Curreri, chairman of Dana Point’s incorporation effort, called that a bad idea. Already some residents of Laguna Niguel and the coastal communities were trading epithets because of the incorporation drives, she said, and such a vote would only continue the enmity.

“To start a new city with what remains from a civil war is not a way to go about it,” Curreri said. She said LAFCO should choose which proposed new city to put the five disputed communities in and let residents in the potential city vote on incorporation in November.