Senate Passes Bill to Change Procedures for Creating Cities

Despite claims it would inspire bitter land disputes, the Senate on Thursday passed a bill authored by Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia) that would change the way cities are formed and make it easier for cityhood proponents to challenge local agencies that reject incorporation drives.

By a 24-12 vote, the Senate sent the bill to the Assembly, where it is expected to face stiff opposition when it is considered after the Legislature’s summer recess. The California Assn. of Local Agency Formation Commissions, the agencies that oversee cityhood efforts, has joined the California Building Industry Assn. and the state’s County Supervisors Assn. in opposing the legislation.

The bill would change state regulations that have given LAFCOs the authority to set city boundaries for the past 25 years. Davis said existing rules give the agencies arbitrary authority to quash cityhood drives and to determine new cities’ boundaries. He said LAFCOs are too closely tied to county governments, which often resist incorporation attempts because they erode county revenue bases.

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The legislation would require the hiring of an independent consultant to conduct feasibility studies for proposed cities and make specific recommendations about incorporation. At present, the LAFCO executive officer conducts the studies and makes the recommendations.

The bill also would make it easier for cityhood proponents who believe their incorporation request has been unjustly rejected to challenge the LAFCO ruling in court. In addition, it would give LAFCOs some philosophical direction when considering cityhood cases by requiring them to “encourage self-determination of the electorate in urbanizing areas which are considering incorporation.”

To get the bill through the Senate, Davis dropped a funding requirement that would have shifted the source of LAFCO funding in large counties from the county to the state. A provision that would have required the state to reimburse counties for revenues lost because of incorporation also was deleted from the final Senate version.

The legislation would affect LAFCOs throughout the state, but it is clearly directed at Los Angeles County’s LAFCO, which Davis said has left “a very bad taste in the mouth” of residents involved in several incorporation efforts. Citing experiences in Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Santa Clarita, Davis compared cityhood battles in Los Angeles County to failed marriages.

“The local citizens for most functions of government are trying to get a divorce from the county,” Davis told the Senate. “They are saying, ‘We think we can do it better on our own.’ . . . The process is like getting a divorce and having one of the parties in the divorce sitting as judge in the action.”

The Los Angeles County LAFCO cut in half the 95-square-mile city that Santa Clarita cityhood advocates had proposed, and also eliminated large areas from the proposed city boundaries of Agoura Hills. After cutting 16 square miles from the proposed 26-square-mile city of Calabasas, the agency denied residents a chance to vote on incorporation because the commissioners said the city would not be solvent.

An opponent of the bill, Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), said of the measure, “Frankly, it will give rise to a new round of range wars in California about how land is to be used, whether it is to be municipally controlled or whether it is to remain in a county . . . whether areas ought to be cities or not cities.”

Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who voted for the bill, said opponents simply want to make it difficult to form cities so that development decisions remain in the hands of counties, which generally are regarded as less restrictive on growth than cities.

“People are increasingly frustrated by the fact that when they live in unincorporated areas that members of the boards of supervisors that they never elect . . . are making decisions about their community,” he said. “That seems to me to be so fundamentally unfair, that it causes me to tilt toward the local desire to incorporate.”

On Wednesday, the city of Los Angeles joined the battle over Davis’s bill by taking the first step toward formally opposing it. A City Council committee recommended that the city oppose the legislation unless the state holds additional hearings.

The city’s chief legislative analyst also recommended that the city oppose the bill. Michael Karsch, an assistant legislative assistant, said the bill’s self-determination provision is “an explicit statement of pro-incorporation” that “removes some of the objectivity in LAFCOs.”

Councilman Hal Bernson, who serves as the city’s representative to Los Angeles County’s LAFCO and represents part of the San Fernando Valley, said he opposes the bill because “it’s an attempt to weaken local control.”

“I think Davis’ proposal is political,” Bernson said in an interview.

Times staff writer Richard Simon, in Los Angeles, contributed to this story.