Petition OKd, but Diamond Bar Vote Appears Far Off

Residents seeking cityhood for this community reached a milestone last week, but they may have seen their ultimate goal--a ballot measure on incorporation--move further into the future.

The county Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) announced that a supplemental petition submitted March 30 by the Incorporation ’88 Committee had 147 valid signatures, enough to put its cityhood application over the top.

Earlier last month, LAFCO had announced that the committee had fallen 56 signatures short of the 5,028 needed to begin cityhood proceedings. Because two petition circulators were not registered to vote in Los Angeles County, 178 otherwise valid signatures were disqualified.

“Victory at last,” said Ivan Nyal, president of the Heritage Tract Homeowners Assn. and chairman of the cityhood petition drive. “We’ve had a very long campaign.”

But while incorporation advocates were jubilant, LAFCO Executive Officer Ruth Benell offered a dim assessment of the likelihood that Diamond Bar voters will be able to decide the cityhood question this fall.

Feasibility Study

“I would say that even right now, their chances of getting it on the November election are pretty slim,” Benell said.

LAFCO staff members must still prepare a feasibility report to determine whether a city of Diamond Bar would have a tax base sufficient to cover the cost of providing services to its citizens. Michi Takahashi, an administrative assistant for LAFCO, said the staff cannot devote its full attention to the Diamond Bar application because it is also processing a cityhood request for Malibu.

If the proposed city proves viable, public hearings would be held, and the seven-member LAFCO board would have to approve the application for cityhood before the County Board of Supervisors could vote to place the incorporation matter on the ballot.

All that takes time. The Board of Supervisors must place the measure on the ballot at least 88 days before the Nov. 8 election, making Aug. 12 the absolute deadline for board action. It is unlikely, Benell said, that LAFCO could consider the matter before the end of July.

“There’s just no way,” she said of the chances of meeting the deadline for a November vote.

If the measure fails to qualify for the November ballot, the earliest a special election could be held would be March, 1989, Benell said.

However, cityhood proponents say they will do everything in their power to expedite the procedure to qualify the ballot measure for November.

“In a presidential election . . . you get the largest turnout,” said Gary Werner, chairman of the Incorporation ’88 Committee. “We think it’s in everyone’s best interests that a decision on local government in Diamond Bar be made with the largest number of voters.”

Phyllis Papen, president of the Diamond Bar Improvement Assn., said the impact of a five-month delay of the cityhood vote could be severe. Noting a series of unpopular zoning decisions by the county Regional Planning Commission, Papen said the community in the meantime could be scarred by developments permitted by county planners.

“The decisions made by the county seem to be diametrically opposed to our general plan,” Papen said. “They do not have the support of the Municipal Advisory Council or the improvement association. There are some major things that will be decided in the next year that will impact the community, in which the community will have no say.”

Papen added that since LAFCO determined that cityhood was feasible in 1983, when voters narrowly rejected incorporation, the county should be able to process the community’s application expeditiously.

“If the county wanted it to be on the November ballot, it would be on the November ballot,” Papen said. “To me, the delay shows a lack of commitment to local control. You can use procedure to stall and withhold local control for another six months.”

In 1983, a Diamond Bar incorporation measure was defeated by a margin of 230 votes out of 6,696 cast. The reason for much of the opposition to cityhood then, Werner said, was fear that incorporation would result in higher taxes--a concern caused largely by the recession of the early 1980s.

After five years of relative prosperity, Diamond Bar residents are now much more supportive of cityhood, Werner said, but he is not sure how the economy will fare next year.

“Once you’ve got a new president in there, economic conditions might change dramatically,” he said. “We’d be back in the same situation (as in 1983), with an off-year election and a weak economy.”