LAGUNA HILLS : New Cityhood Drive Omits Leisure World

Municipal fever is once again spreading throughout the Saddleback Valley.

Members of Citizens to Save Laguna Hills announced on Tuesday that they are launching a campaign to form an eight-square-mile city of 30,000 residents that would exclude the Leisure World retirement community.

The announcement came a week after members of the Community Coalition for Incorporation began taking their first steps to form a 21-square-mile city out of El Toro, Lake Forest and Portola Hills.

Pro-cityhood groups in both Laguna Hills and El Toro hope to collect enough signatures by mid-March to qualify their proposals for inclusion on the November ballot.

The Laguna Hills group was bolstered by precinct studies from the June, 1989, election that showed strong cityhood support in all areas of the community except Leisure World.

“We’re just doing what the people want,” said Ellen Martin, a spokeswoman for the Citizens to Save Laguna Hills. She was referring to findings that 83% of Laguna Hills residents opted for cityhood in June, 1989.

The measure lost by 284 votes because of a high voter turnout in Leisure World, where residents there feared that a city government would be too intrusive in their affairs.

“We just cut (Leisure World) out of the map this time,” said Melody Carruth, a pro-cityhood worker.

Martin said that about 100 volunteers will begin walking door to door Saturday morning in an effort to collect the 4,000 signatures needed to accompany the Laguna Hills application to the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission.

The group also needs to complete a study that would show that the proposed city would be financially secure, Martin said.

She said preliminary figures indicate that a city of Laguna Hills would have a $3-million surplus, due in large part to revenue drawn from the Laguna Hills Mall and commercial parks near Lake Forest Drive and Interstate 5.

If LAFCO approves the plan, it will be the third time that Laguna Hills residents have had the opportunity to vote on cityhood. The first time, Laguna Hills residents strongly opposed a proposed Saddleback Valley which included Laguna Hills, El Toro, Lake Forest, Portola Hills and Aegean Hills.

El Toro cityhood proponents, meanwhile, are “on target” in their drive to collect 10,000 signatures by March 14, said Helen Wilson, president of the Community Coalition for Incorporation.

“We’re off to a good start,” she said. “There is a lot of awareness out there about cityhood.”