Diamond Bar Girds for Cityhood Birthday Bash

Hal and Karlene Edwards notice more traffic patrol cars in their Diamond Bar neighborhood.

Real estate broker Gwen Henry points to stricter building codes that keep tract homes spaced farther apart.

The Gebani family, owner of the only Middle Eastern meat market in the city, no longer has to use a Pomona mailing address, which the county required before incorporation.

And City Manager Robert Van Nort boasts a balanced budget with a hefty surplus, to be used to beef up law enforcement and start drug-awareness programs in the upscale bedroom community.

The fruits of cityhood, however, aren’t as noticeable for Mark Gracza, who marked Diamond Bar’s one-year anniversary by voting to replace two City Council members running for reelection.

“They really haven’t done anything outstanding,” the 33-year-old pharmacist said, after emerging from a polling booth in a north Diamond Bar fire station. “They had an opportunity to make an impact and really didn’t.”

And cityhood still doesn’t sit well with two longtime opponents of incorporation, Frank Dursa and Al Rumpilla. The two retired men believe that eventually city officials will levy assessment fees on homeowners to pay for city services, which they say are not markedly improved.

“I was very happy with the county,” Dursa said. “They came and swept our streets. I had no complaints.”

Most of the 19% of Diamond Bar voters who cast ballots last week apparently like the way things are. John Forbing and Gary Werner, the only incumbents running, got four more years in office. Jay Kim was elected to a third council seat.

Still, there are wrinkles to be ironed out as Los Angeles County’s newest city gears up for its first birthday bash this Saturday.

Diamond Bar is still waiting for Gov. George Deukmejian to sign a bill that would give the city $1.2 million in property tax revenues. Another bill that would redraw postal boundaries to conform with the city limits, so that some homes and businesses in Diamond Bar won’t have Walnut mailing addresses, is making its way through congressional committees.

A barricade blocking traffic on Grand Avenue from San Bernardino County will be removed later this year, bringing even more cars to Diamond Bar streets. New roads need to be built and traffic signals installed.

For the most part, incorporation is being hailed as a success by those who fought for it.

“The city has accomplished in 10 months what other cities in the San Gabriel Valley would be envious to accomplish in a decade,” Werner said.

Mayor Phyllis Papen rattles off a list of accomplishments that, she said, topped anything the county did. Those include increased traffic patrols by the Sheriff’s Department, tighter zoning controls and parks improvements.

“Some people say, ‘I don’t see a lot of changes,’ ” she said. “There have been changes.”

The differences are subtle. Although cityhood proponents last year campaigned heavily on a slow-growth platform, most of the 8,000 acres of rolling hills are already covered with homes and retail strips.

Virtually all of what’s left has been subdivided and is continuing to attract new residents. Diamond Bar’s population is climbing toward 70,000, making it one of Southern California’s fastest-growing communities.

Now, the challenge comes in trying to attract more quality development, a buzzword for candidates in this year’s election.

“We may not have country living in town any more but what we have now is a dynamic Diamond Bar,” Forbing said.

Diamond Bar has had some disappointments and embarrassments since incorporation. First, there was the violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meetings law. The San Gabriel Valley Daily Tribune sued Diamond Bar after a reporter was asked to leave a meeting during which council members-elect chose a mayor and mayor pro tem and hired an interim city manager.

Two weeks after the incorporation election in March, 1989, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge slapped the City Council-elect with an injunction prohibiting meetings behind closed doors. The court ruling surprised city officials, who thought they were exempt from the law until they were sworn in.

Then, a few months after incorporation, Diamond Bar officials learned that three council members were not guaranteed two-year terms, as originally expected. Because Diamond Bar’s incorporation election was in March, 1989, state law required a municipal election in April, 1990, even if that meant shortening the terms of council members.

As soon as they heard the bad news, city officials turned to the county for help in postponing the election, but to no avail. Then, they lobbied Republican Assemblyman Frank Hill, who promised to look into legislation but later abandoned the effort after being criticized by several council members.

But Diamond Bar faced a more serious problem: The loss of $1.2 million in property tax revenue that the city couldn’t receive because it had incorporated too late. Again, city officials first sought assistance from the county, and were turned down. And again, they turned to Hill, who this time proposed a bill that would turn over the tax money to Diamond Bar. The bill passed both houses of the Legislature on April 5.

Thanks to conservative budgeting, Diamond Bar has a $750,000 surplus this year. Without the property tax money, the narcotics enforcement program and hiring more city employees might have to be postponed until next year, Van Nort said.

Any chronicle of Diamond Bar’s trials and tribulations would have to set aside a whole section for Hill, who has remained popular in a heavily Republican district despite being one of five elected officials targeted in an FBI investigation into alleged political corruption in the Capitol.

On Tuesday, Hill soundly defeated Democrat Janice Graham to become state senator in the 31st District. He will be sworn in Monday, filling the seat vacated by the resignation of William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights).

For the majority of residents who have stayed out of city politics, though, there are other, more tangible signs of cityhood.

Sylvia Chavez worries about the barricade stretching across Grand Avenue, just a mile down the street from her apartment. More specifically, she worries about the cars and trucks from the rapidly growing San Bernardino County community of Chino Hills that will come pouring through Diamond Bar in September, when the chain-link fence and wooden barriers will be lifted as part of an agreement with San Bernardino County.

For Chavez, that might mean an even longer wait at the intersection of Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand, where her car engine putters for as long as 10 minutes to make a left turn to the grocery store. “Between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. I just don’t go out there anymore,” she said. “I make early appointments with the doctor.”

Gebani Gebani, 35, whose family owns the only Muslim butcher shop in the area, hopes Diamond Bar cityhood will eventually bring Muslims more political representation in the rapidly diversifying city.

The store, Al Jibani Halal Meat Market on Golden Springs Drive, also serves as a gathering place and referral service for a growing Islamic community in Diamond Bar and neighboring Walnut.