Cityhood Bid for Calabasas Advances and Retreats

Calabasas residents racing to meet a June incorporation election deadline cleared one major hurdle Monday--but were tripped up by another.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that county officials are free to decide Thursday whether to authorize the election for a 10-square-mile area.

But Judge Miriam Vogel prohibited the county Local Agency Formation Commission from deducting $675,800 in wild-lands firefighting costs from a tight first-year operating budget for the proposed “City of Calabasas.”

Vogel said a 2-month-old state law that excuses the proposed city from paying the brush-fire protection fee to the county Fire Department may not be legal. She said she will formally rule on its constitutionality within the next month.

Monday’s action removed a temporary restraining order that had blocked the LAFCO hearing and threatened to cause cityhood backers to miss the deadline to qualify for the June 7 general election ballot.

Ballot Deadline

If LAFCO approves cityhood, the county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to decide March 1 whether to authorize it for the ballot. March 11 is the final day for ballot issues to qualify.

The restraining order was obtained 2 1/2 weeks ago on behalf of a Calabasas developer trying to prevent his planned 1,300-acre tract from becoming part of the city.

Calabasas incorporation backers said Monday they are confident that their proposed city will be financially successful even if it has to pay the hefty brush-fire fee.

They acknowledged, however, that it may be difficult to convince LAFCO members of that. Thursday’s commission meeting has been designated as a closed hearing--where no new arguments can be presented.

The commission’s staff has predicted revenues of $2.9 million against expenditures of $3.8 million during Calabasas’ first year, if it is allowed to incorporate.

Leaders of a cityhood study committee had forecast a first-year city income of at least $3 million and expenses of only $1.8 million, with a chance that another $1.5 million in revenues could also be obtained.

Double Counting Claimed

Committee Vice President Dennis Washburn said some expenditures have been counted twice in the LAFCO budget analysis. “Some revenue figures had been omitted”--including about $1.5 million in additional property-tax revenue that the committee believes the new city should get, according to Washburn.

Edward Dilkes, the committee’s lawyer, expressed disappointment in Vogel’s ruling on the $675,800 fire-fee deduction. He said Calabasas leaders will appeal to a higher court for permission to subtract the brush-fire costs.

According to Dilkes, cityhood “is economically viable for Calabasas” with or without the fire fee.

“We’re still optimistic,” cityhood committee President Robert Hill said late Monday. “The budget is very close. I think people in our area ought to have a chance to vote on something that is very close to having a balanced budget.”

Douglas Ring, an attorney for developer Jim Baldwin and for a friend of Baldwin’s who filed suit to halt the cityhood process, said incorporation leaders have little chance of proving the city won’t be in debt.

“Without a total revision in the way the county divides up property taxes, you have a city that’s not financially viable,” Ring said. “LAFCO should not create cities that can’t pay their bills.”

Lloyd Pellman, a county lawyer who represents LAFCO, said commissioners will have the authority Thursday to approve or reject almost any size city they want.

If Baldwin’s property is excluded, however, several neighborhoods and a lucrative business district on the western side of Calabasas will be physically separated from the main city area and likewise excluded from the new municipal boundaries.

During Monday’s brief court session, Vogel said there was “no real evidence” that Calabasas “would be anything but an economically viable city” after paying the fire fee to the county.

“I can’t jump to the conclusion they’d be in debt,” she told attorneys for both sides.

But she criticized the fire-fee law--passed last year at the request of state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia). “Whoever did it didn’t do it in a way to pass constitutional muster,” she said.

Davis denied late Monday that his legislation is illegal, or a “gift of public funds” to Calabasas residents, as its critics have charged.

He said he will ask the state attorney general’s office and the Legislature’s legal staff to help Calabasas residents appeal Vogel’s final decision, if it is negative.

Davis said that the county proposes to charge Calabasas “a totally indefensible amount” for wild-land protection. He suggested that the high fee may be aimed at preventing undeveloped open space from slipping from the county’s grasp and falling under the control of an independent city.

“The county supervisors, for some reason or another, seem to have a tremendous empathy for land developers. And vice versa,” Davis said.