A Helping Hand : $65,000 Gift To Aid Bonsall’s Ballot Bid for Services District

The residents of Bonsall, a rural enclave of North County that includes a key stretch of the verdant San Luis Rey River Valley, are moving toward a measure of local control under an unusual offer of financial assistance from a local property owner.

J. Peter Moncrieff, a 43-year-old computer scientist and editor-publisher of Audio International Review, has created a $65,000 endowment to pay the first three years of overhead for the proposed Bonsall Community Services District.

A recent successful fight to keep Vista from annexing part of Bonsall to pave the way for the 250-acre, 385-unit Rancho Tres Amigos subdivision galvanized the horse-and-farm community into reaching for a share of self-governance.

The measure to create the services district is on the June 7 ballot. Without the Moncrieff endowment, the measure would also have carried a small property tax boost and thus required two-thirds approval for passage.

With the endowment, the need for an immediate tax is eliminated and only a simple majority will be required to create the district, which is meant to oversee the purchase of open space and the development of libraries and recreational facilities.

Moncrieff and other Bonsall boosters say creation of the community services district is a crucial step in helping to preserve the six-mile stretch of the San Luis Rey River Valley that runs down the middle of the community, which is home to the famed San Luis Rey Downs thoroughbred stables and vast acreage of tomato and strawberry fields.

‘A Vital Tool’

“You can’t build a house without a hammer,” said Moncrieff, who moved to Bonsall in 1982 after being on the faculty of Columbia University. “The services district will be a vital tool for our community to use to save our beautiful valley.”

As proposed, the district will comprise 34 square miles nestled between Oceanside to the west, the proposed city limits of Fallbrook to the north, Interstate 15 to the east, and the fast-growing Vista to the south.

Upwards of 8,000 people live in the area, with the greatest concentration in a 4-square-mile portion near Vista, where one-acre lots are common. On the remaining 30 square miles, lots are commonly two acres or more.

Bonsall is unincorporated and thus under the control of the county government. Even if voters approve creation of the services district, land-use decisions would still be made by the county Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.

But boosters point out that a community services district, which would have its own locally elected five-member governing board, would have a voice in regional decisions regarding the San Luis Rey River Valley, which starts in the remote Cleveland National Forest and meanders 40-plus miles to the ocean at Oceanside.

Attorney R. William Ferrante, one of the leaders of the petition drive to get the district issue on the ballot, lists five forces pressing down on the San Luis Rey River Valley that make creation of the district vital:

- Work under way by county planners on flood control management and open space acquisition for San Luis Rey.

- Work under way by Caltrans to design improvements for California 76, including a replacement for the aging Bonsall Bridge.

- A statewide bond issue before voters later this year, the $776-million California Wildlife & Parkland Conversation Act, which could make as much as $10 million available for San Luis Rey parkland.

- Planning for the Santa Margarita Dam in Fallbrook. Dam builders might be interested in helping to save up to 500 acres of riparian land in the San Luis Rey River Valley as part of their “environmental mitigation” requirements.

- A habitat study under way by the San Diego Assn. of Governments, and discussion of a joint-powers agreement between Sandag and Oceanside to help preserve the valley.

“It’s not that we’re environmentalists or anti-development--I don’t think either Peter or I belong to the Sierra Club--but we’ve seen what has happened to other river valleys, in San Diego, Los Angeles, the Santa Ana River,” Ferrante said. “We want to see that those mistakes are not repeated in San Luis Rey.”

On Monday, Ferrante and North County Supervisor John MacDonald convinced the Local Agency Formation Commission to drop the tax requirement from the June 7 ballot measure, in light of Moncrieff’s offer to set up the endowment, with the interest being used for operating expenses.

LAFCO staffers said that none of the county’s 100-plus special districts has begun life with only an endowment for funding. They warned that running parks is expensive, pointing out that a new five-acre park in East County is costing $50,000 yearly to maintain.

Supplemental Tax

Ferrante argued that before the district moves to buy or build anything, more money will be available through state or local bonds or additional endowments. Under the LAFCO decision, Bonsall voters must consider a tax to supplement the endowment within three years.

“We’re not going to build something we can’t maintain,” Ferrante said. “Whether it’s a park with swings and teeter-totters, or a community center with swimming pools and tennis courts, you’re not going to find irresponsible people on the board.”

The tax suggested by LAFCO would have added as much as $24 to the average property owner’s bill.

Ferrante said the two-thirds requirement would probably have been too difficult to attain--pointing to park bonds on the recent ballot in San Diego that received majority backing but failed to get the needed two-thirds.

Moncrieff, who owns less than an acre, said the two-thirds requirement is an unfair hurdle attached to the creation of special districts by Prop. 13.

“People will get this tool put into their hands for free, then it’s up to the people to use it wisely,” said Moncrieff, whose publication evaluates advances in stereo equipment and other audio components.