Fallbrook Voters Seek to Cling to Rural Life by Rejecting Cityhood

A frustrated Charles Wolk figures he will at least have some good cocktail party conversation as a result of the decision by Fallbrook voters not to incorporate their community.

Wolk won the most votes in Tuesday’s election for the proposed Town Council. Had incorporation been approved, he would have been mayor of San Diego County’s 19th city. Instead, he can only figure he is the most popular person in town.

For the second time in a row, Fallbrook voters wary of rocking the boat decided convincingly that they have little need or want for local bureaucracy and would just as soon continue to be governed by the county Board of Supervisors.

Narrower Margin Than Before

Incorporation was defeated Tuesday by a 3-2 margin--narrower than in 1981, when cityhood was slam-dunked by a 4-1 ratio.

Voter turnout in Fallbrook was a whopping 66%, contrasted with the countywide turnout of 42.8%.

Voters in Bonsall also went to the polls in greater proportion than the rest of the county, and a proposal to establish a community services district for libraries and recreation was defeated by just 60 votes out of 2,076 cast.

Bonsall Planning Group chairman Dominic Savoca, who campaigned for creation of the special district, said he was heartened despite the narrow loss.

“I think the election was a raving success,” he said Wednesday. “We got out 54% of the vote, which tells me that it’s important to us in Bonsall to keep the area rural,” even if there was disagreement about how best to do it.

Proponents had said the district would help thwart annexations from neighboring Vista, but critics said there are better ways of keeping Bonsall rural than by establishing another layer of government.

Disagreed on Methods

Somewhat the same dilemma faced Fallbrook, where both sides in the election agreed they wanted to keep Fallbrook as rural as possible, but disagreed bitterly on how to do it.

Wolk, president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, attributed the incorporation defeat to a lack of vision and fear of change by Fallbrook voters.

“It’s people’s natural tendency to resist change, and, in the case of Fallbrook, there is an even greater resistance because people like things the way they are now,” Wolk said.

“And it’s easy to raise enough little doubt (about incorporation)--like to say there wouldn’t be enough money--to give people all the reason they need not to change,” he said.

“It won’t happen that way. Change will come to the community, and I would have felt a lot better if the people in the community were making decisions about us than the people in county government. I’m disappointed that we lost a golden opportunity,” Wolk said.

Incorporation opponents, however, said the proposal failed because the bedroom community does not want to cast itself as a city, with the attendant growth and development.

Suspicious of Motives

Incorporation backers, said opposition leader Jack Wireman, “were simply pushing a theory, a dream. But the people looked through it and decided they didn’t want any part of it because it wouldn’t fit in with our life style.”

“They didn’t want a bunch of local bureaucrats up here,” Wireman said. “It would complicate our lives.”

Wireman also speculated that voters were suspicious of the motives for cityhood and believed that developers and real-estate interests were its moving forces and financial backers--elements that bode ill for a rural life style.

Incorporation backers spent about $30,000 campaigning for the proposal and an additional $10,000 to finance the study that indicated incorporation was financially feasible, said Al Fuller, chairman of the Fallbrook Incorporation Coalition. The campaign remains about $4,000 in debt, he said.

By contrast, Wireman said, opponents spent only about $4,000 to fight the move, primarily through flyers and newspaper advertisements.

Fuller, who acknowledged that his side “got clobbered,” said he believes many voters made their decision simply on the basis of the emotional connotation of cityhood, without considering the merits of becoming a municipality.

He said his side also failed to allay fears that incorporation would reach into residents’ pocketbooks in one form or another.