COLUMN ONE REGIONAL REPORT : Cityhood Fever--It's Catching : A growing number of Southland citizens are chafing under county control. At least 20 communities may seek autonomy.

By HECTOR TOBAR

July 16, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A few rebellious denizens of the town of Acton are planning for the day when they can tear down about two-dozen aluminum street lights. They don’t like the way the glowing lamps blot out the stars in the desert sky, and they don’t much like the way county officials thrust them on the community.

The Actonites are mad enough about the street lights, and lots of other things, that they want to form their own city, freeing themselves for good of county tutelage.

It is a strategy being followed by disgruntled citizens throughout Southern California. From La Jolla in San Diego County to Acton in the booming Antelope Valley, groups in at least 20 communities, representing perhaps 1 million residents, are contemplating runs at cityhood.

The movements are fueled by a variety of motives, ranging from anxiety about disappearing horse trails to the incursion of apartment dwellers into affluent neighborhoods.

For many Acton residents, glare from the county-imposed street lights is a symbol of how Acton’s rural flavor is being ruined by “flatlanders” who run the unincorporated mountain community from the Hall of Administration building in downtown Los Angeles.

“The county doesn’t pay any attention to our complaints,” said Charles Brink, 53, a leader of the incorporation movement. “The people have a right to self-determination.”

There is no shortage of examples for the Actonites to follow. Malibu residents voted this year to make their community Los Angeles County’s 87th city. And last year, Diamond Bar became the county’s 86th city, while Dana Point and Laguna Niguel became Orange County’s 28th and 29th cities.

Spurred by these successes and their own longing for autonomy, the Los Angeles County communities of Calabasas, Topanga Canyon and Venice have stepped up efforts to complete the long and arduous incorporation process. So have San Pedro, Wilmington, Sunset Hills and the Orange County communities of North Tustin, Laguna Hills and El Toro.

“It’s like the measles; it’s catching,” observed Ruth Bennell of Los Angeles County’s Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees the incorporation process.

Southern Californians have been forming new municipalities almost nonstop since the first great land booms of the 1870s, but this particular bout of “city fever” has a character all its own.

Nowadays, cityhood campaigns are often led by homeowners who have transformed themselves into seasoned “land-use” activists. They cut their political teeth trying to stop or scale-down condominium developments, waste dumps and other projects that they feel threaten their suburban way of life.

Like the slow-growth movement, the cityhood campaigns underscore the increased role of politics in suburbia, as traffic congestion and urban sprawl begin to reach even the more undeveloped areas of the metropolis, such as Acton.

Cityhood supporters promise that incorporation will bring increased police protection, improved public services and more control over local issues. In some cases, they advocate incorporation as the best way for affluent communities to avoid unfriendly annexation by their less-affluent neighbors.

The cityhood movement also appears to reflect a maturing sense of identity and place in what were once only “bedroom” communities where weary commuters came to sleep and rest, leaving concerns about politics behind them.

“It has to do with image and power, unity and identity,” said Ed Hawkins, 68, one of a group of residents trying to create the city of Jurupa in Riverside County.

Hawkins, a former school district superintendent, said he has grown tired of people asking him, “‘Where the heck is Jurupa?’ ”

“The name just doesn’t ring a bell,” he said.

But if Jurupa were to incorporate, Hawkins reasons, it might become as well known as other Riverside County cities, such as Palm Springs.

“(Cityhood) gives you a sense of self,” he said.

The proposed 54-square-mile city of Jurupa lies just west of the Santa Ana River, a stone’s throw from the city of Riverside. It is set in an arid valley, bounded to the north by the rock-covered Jurupa Mountains.

During most of this century, the valley was ranchland where cattle and horses grazed. Now, Jurupa is a burgeoning suburb, with ranch-style condominiums sprouting almost as fast as Orange and Los Angeles County-based commuters can buy them.

As laid out by the Jurupa Cityhood Committee, the proposed municipality would be home to about 65,000 people.

For a community to become a city, a majority of the voters in the proposed municipality must approve incorporation in a special election. But even before incorporation can be placed on the ballot, cityhood advocates must receive the approval of the local county board of supervisors and the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO).

LAFCO, an independent state agency, determines whether a proposed municipal government would go bankrupt soon after opening the doors of its City Hall. If a proposed city does not have within its borders the tax base to pay for a city manager, police protection and other municipal services, LAFCO will reject cityhood.

As more than one would-be city founder has learned, taking on LAFCO is not for the faint of heart. Malibu’s incorporation languished for years as both LAFCO, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and incorporation proponents debated the fate of sewer lines and other issues.

Experienced cityhood advocates say winning an incorporation drive requires a keen sense of organization, an eye for bureaucratic detail, and an ability to raise some cash.

These qualities describe Barbara Veitch, a 54-year-old beautician who is one of the leaders of Jurupa’s incorporation effort. She has filled her laundry room with demographic analyses, petitions, fiscal reports and topographical maps. Files with two years’ worth of correspondence with LAFCO cover her washing machine and dryer.

“It’s just unbelievable,” she said. “I am not a government person and this is really illogical to me. I cannot believe the nonsense we have to go through.”

To support its incorporation drive, the Jurupa committee will likely spend about $70,000 in LAFCO fees and to complete the necessary fiscal studies.

Because of the fund-raising and organizing demands, homeowner associations, chambers of commerce and other middle-class civic organizations play a leading role in cityhood drives. Often, retirees with extra time on their hands form the front-line troops, said Mike Bannan of the Oceanside firm of Christensen & Wallace, a consultant on incorporation matters.

“The common thread running through all of these people is a sense of community responsibility,” Bannan said. “They want what is best for the community and they want more control over what’s happening in their neighborhood.”

Bannan said that these suburbanites might first become involved in an effort to install a traffic light or crosswalk in their neighborhoods. As their community concerns grow, they eventually conclude that there is no good reason to travel five, 10 or 50 miles to a Board of Supervisors meeting to debate local issues.

With incorporation, they say, such matters can be argued in the “homey and friendly” atmosphere of their small-town city councils.

Still, there are other, somewhat more self-interested motives fueling a few incorporation campaigns.

In the affluent, “prestige” community of North Tustin in Orange County, some residents say they fear their homes, with an average value of about $600,000, will suddenly be worth substantially less if they are annexed by the city of Tustin.

LAFCO also approves or rejects annexations. But it is easier to annex unincorporated territory to an already established city than it is to incorporate a new one. This is because municipal government must merely expand existing services while a new city must create them from scratch.

Bill Weber, 61, said Tustin has already annexed several chunks of unincorporated land to the north of its city limits, approving apartment construction projects that leave North Tustinites with a sinking feeling in their pocketbooks.

“Apartments tend to knock down property values,” said Weber, an executive with a trade-show company. “Apartment owners tend to be transient and not to have the same concern for property that homeowners do. People say it’s snobbish or elitist, but I think it’s just a fact of life.

“North Tustin is basically a single-family residential community,” he continued. North Tustin residents “don’t want multifamily zoning, they want to keep it the way it is. This is a defensive incorporation and not an offensive incorporation.”

Fears of an unfriendly annexation are also very much alive in Chino Hills, a rapidly growing development just west of the predominantly working-class city of Chino.

Chino is home to the California Institution for Men, a state prison. Chino Hills, on the other hand, is a place where residents still keep horses in their back yards.

“They’ve got a nice city, but we are not the city of Chino,” said Douglas Sparkes, 43, chairman of the incorporation committee. “The demographics are totally different. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. The city of Chino is very urban and has urban problems. Chino Hills has a very rural flair.”

Nearly 50 miles to the west of Chino Hills, a very different group of men and women are behind an apparently quixotic campaign in Venice to secede from the city of Los Angeles. One of the chief petitioners is a homeless man named “Dr. John” who walks the Venice beachfront sporting a Jamaican turban.

Larry Sullivan, a leader of the Venice secession drive, points out that cityhood is not new for the beachside community, which was independent during the early part of this century.

“Venice was a city for 25 years,” he said. “It’s character has never been anything other than a separate community. Venice ought to be a separate country. “

Sullivan acknowledges that cityhood for Venice remains a far-off possibility. Secession would have to be approved by the Los Angeles City Council, an unlikely event, given the loss of tax revenue to the city. Still, Sullivan holds out hope that if enough Venetians clamor for cityhood, state officials will be obliged to enact legislation granting Venice independence.

Cityhood seems much more likely in unincorporated Acton. Voters there recently elected an Acton Town Council. Although its role is largely symbolic, Actonites say one day it could become the prototype for a city council.

Many town council members are transplanted San Fernando Valley residents who were never active before in politics. With Palmdale growing so quickly--a rush of southbound commuters passes through Acton each morning--the new Actonites have decided to take a stand.

Joel B. Hecht, 37, moved to the desert community last year from Studio City. Now he is vice president of the town council and chairman of the incorporation committee.

“It’s scary when you move here and you see developers building 200 condominiums,” he said, explaining his new-found civic pride. “You’re afraid that what you just left is following you.”

INDEPENDENT-MINDED The following are some of the Southern California communities where resident groups say they are considering incorporation or secession from existing cities. LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Acton

Calabasas

San Pedro

Sunset Hills

Topanga Canyon

Venice (secession from city of Los Angeles)

Westchester (secession from city of Los Angeles)

Wilmington (secession from city of Los Angeles)

ORANGE COUNTY

El Toro

Laguna Hills

North Tustin