Mission Viejo : Panel Holding Firm on Incorporation Vote

Despite a threatened lawsuit and six letters of protest, including four from south county citizens’ groups, Orange County’s Local Agency Formation Commission Tuesday repeated its commitment to a vote in November on the proposed incorporation of Mission Viejo.

At a meeting of the commission Tuesday, speakers took turns expressing their objections to the proposal, all of which focused on boundary disputes.

Roger A. Grable, an attorney representing the Nellie Gail Ranch Homeowners Assn., threatened to attack the whole incorporation proposal with a lawsuit if the commission did not make two minor boundary changes.

But despite the threats, four of the five commission members voted to deny all proposed boundary changes. Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez abstained because he had not participated in previous hearings on the issue. The proposal goes before the Board of Supervisors today.

The El Toro Community Assn., the Saddleback Area Coordinating Council, the Nellie Gail group, the Coto de Caza Community Assn. and an unaffiliated El Toro resident spoke against the proposed boundaries, which Grable termed “simply not logical.”

Concern focused on about 80 acres of the proposed city north of El Toro Road that could lead to jurisdictional disputes and 70 acres west of the San Diego Freeway that could encroach on neighboring developments.