Laguna Niguel Cityhood Measure OKd for Ballot

Laguna Niguel moved to the last step before cityhood Wednesday when the County Board of Supervisors, after a 90-second public hearing, unanimously voted to put the question on the Nov. 7 ballot.

If a majority of voters in Laguna Niguel approves the incorporation, the community will become the county’s 29th or 30th city, depending on the outcome of a June 6 vote on cityhood for nearby Laguna Hills.

If both Laguna Hills and Laguna Niguel incorporate this year, they will be the third and fourth new cities to be created in the south county in less than 2 years. Mission Viejo and Dana Point became cities last year.

At the public hearing Wednesday on Laguna Niguel, there was no vocal opposition to a proposal that has taken 27 months to get a ballot spot.

The proposal was first delayed by a dispute between Laguna Hills and Dana Point over a 1.5-mile strip of coveted coastal property which eventually was awarded to Dana Point in a decision that is being challenged in court. Most recently, a handful of residents of a housing development who wanted to be left out of the proposed city lodged last-minute protests and delayed the process long enough to keep the proposal off the June 6 ballot.

Before Wednesday’s hearing, which originally had been set for March 8, supervisors received fewer than 25 written protests, board Chairman Thomas F. Riley said. It would have taken protests from half of the 18,325 registered voters in the area to keep the measure off the ballot. Polls have shown that residents of Laguna Niguel--which is wedged between San Juan Capistrano, Mission Viejo and Dana Point--overwhelmingly favor cityhood.

“This has been a long road, but it is the culmination of a dream,” Jim Krembas, president of the Laguna Niguel Services District, said after the board vote. The district was set up to govern the proposed city until an elected government can be established.

Five city council members will be chosen in the Nov. 7 election. Krembas said he has not decided whether he will be a candidate, because “my main thrust has been getting (the incorporation measure) on the ballot.”

The major disadvantage to the delay in getting the ballot spot, he said, is that the city, if it is approved, will lose $642,000 it would have gotten in state allocations if the incorporation could have been approved in June.

Despite the loss, Krembas said, the new city still will have to pay an estimated $400,000 to the county for basic municipal services that the county will continue to provide until the city begins providing its own, or contracting for them.

Krembas and other board members of the services district said the dispute over the coastal property is still very much alive, even though an Orange County Superior Court judge upheld a county commission’s decision to award the strip to Dana Point.

That decision is being appealed. Board member Marc Leever said the strip is especially valuable because it features parkland and two hotels.