Proposal to Join Corona Sharply Divides Residents of Rural El Cerrito : Annexation: Some would prefer city services from their larger neighbor. Others fear the change would bring an end to their preferred lifestyle.

In these parts, it’s common to hear roosters crow in the morning, see horseback riders on the streets and drive by home after home with a mishmash of old cars and farm animals in their back yards.

Everywhere in this unincorporated Riverside County village are signs that it is rural, rustic and independent. The roads have hand-painted signs and no curbs, street lights or sidewalks. And by and large, the residents want to keep it that way.

But for the past few weeks, this community of more than 3,000 residents has been sharply divided on what to do about growth that is rapidly approaching. Already, several subdivisions are being built nearby, and more are proposed that would begin to make El Cerrito an unincorporated rural island in the middle of new urban sprawl in the Temescal Valley.

One group of residents is pushing for annexation to neighboring Corona, which they say would be more responsive to their concerns than a distant and financially strapped Riverside County government. Other residents are bitterly against annexation, saying that city life will bring more traffic, crime, and perhaps worst of all, make El Cerrito another patch of suburbia.

“They’ll have development on every piece of ground that is bare,” said Bill Kourkos, who has lived in El Cerrito for about 26 years. “There will be no control. What you see in El Cerrito will be gone. It will be Orange County, it will be just like Orange County.”

But annexation supporters say that not much will change if El Cerrito becomes part of Corona. They point to an offer from Corona officials to let them keep their land the way it is, with low-density living and rights to raise animals. Moreover, supporters say that they are more likely to keep their rural lifestyle with the city, because officials will be close by to hear their concerns about the growth around them.

Annexation supporters “see the area moving very rapidly,” said Art Holmes, who has lived in El Cerrito for seven years. “They see the lack of services the county can provide. They have too big of an area to cover.”

For their part, Corona officials say they would welcome annexation. El Cerrito lies right in the center of plans that Corona has to expand its borders to the east and south. Such expansions could give Corona property- and sales-tax dollars, along with control over development in the Temescal Valley, which runs along the Corona Freeway (Interstate 15).

Already, the city has annexed Jasmine Ridge, a 55-acre housing development in the foothills to the southwest of El Cerrito, and is pushing for the annexation of Eagle Valley, a 3,000-home development to the east.

Still, many city officials say they are reluctant to initiate any annexation overtures, fearing that it would appear as if they are trying to take over El Cerrito.

“Even though we think it would make sense for them to become part of the city, I do want to make it clear that if a majority of the residents do not want to be in the city, they won’t be,” said Corona City Manager Bill Garrett.

With an annexation, Corona also has agreed to accept roads as they are--even without street lights and curbs--and incorporate El Cerrito into its master plan for parks and recreation. According to supporters, a county proposal to update the Temescal Valley plan calls for no parks in El Cerrito.

In addition, the city would offer a higher ratio of police protection than the county, and it would not reassess the property upon annexation. On the downside, residents would be assessed for street lights and sewer bonds, even if they don’t have those services.

But the most disputed factors over annexation involve sewer and water hookups. Many homes use septic tanks and private wells. Corona has told residents that they could remain on these utilities unless the Riverside County Health Services Department deems them unsafe.

Becoming part of the city would reduce the 50% surcharge on residents’ water bill, city officials say. But that has been a sticking point between Corona and some El Cerrito residents since the late 1960s. At that time, Corona took control of the local water company, which also served surrounding unincorporated areas, and added the extra fees.

“There’s a lot of history to that,” said Riverside County Supervisor Walter Abraham. “People feel like they were penalized for not becoming part of the city of Corona. That’s left sort of a sour taste in their mouths.”

Even so, just how many people oppose or support annexation is unclear. Last May, the El Cerrito Citizens Assn. took a straw vote at a special public meeting, where annexation was defeated 234 to 241. Both sides say the vote was hardly representative of the city’s residents.

In August, a new group, El Cerrito Citizens for Annexation, began going door to door collecting signatures of backers. Marlene Webber, a member of the group, said that of 1,000 people surveyed so far, about 600 were in favor.

Shortly after Webber told the Corona City Council in November that she had collected the signatures, opponents mobilized and came up with more than 620 signatures of their own. Kourkos, an opponent of annexation, said the dissident group now has more than 700 signatures.

Annexation has recently been the talk of Ontario Avenue, El Cerrito’s oak tree-lined main street of family-owned general stores, horse stables and a few taverns.

“Nobody likes having the city around,” said Jad Salman, the manager of the El Cerrito Food Store. “Most of these people come from L.A. or Orange County. They come to get away from the city. They don’t want it.”

Still, there is resentment that the annexation was initiated by Orange County transplants who may want to keep the area rural, but change it to their liking.

“If they wanted the city, why didn’t they move to the city?” said Diana Netland, 35, a crossing guard at El Cerrito Elementary School who moved to El Cerrito with her husband and three children eight years ago from Buena Park.

“There was a woman who moved from Orange County to the hills in El Cerrito,” she added, pointing to an area on the east side of town. “She saw all the houses and told me, ‘They should raze them all and build new ones.’ ”

El Cerrito has had a long history of quiet and relatively slow growth. At the turn of the century, El Cerrito began to grow as a small enclave of citrus ranches and then avocado groves. The area attracted a few families to a limited number of small homes and farms, including that of author Sinclair Lewis. But it was not until 1945, when Francis A. Stearns bought the El Cerrito Ranch and drilled water wells, that the area became more populated.

But it has retained its independent character, and some opponents fear losing that. Although the county has codes regulating everything from weed removal to the parking of large trucks in back yards, the city is more likely to be better at enforcing it, opponents say.

“I like the rusticness,” said Norma Hoskins, who owns the Sportsman, a country-Western bar. “The less control of the law the better off you are. . . . If we incorporate, that just means that we will be under more scrutiny.”

Others are skeptical of some of the promises made by the city.

“They say they won’t do anything,” said Cynthia Forsythe, 35, who has lived in El Cerrito for seven years. “But what they say doesn’t always happen. Your next-door neighbor may not like your roosters, and they can call in and they’re gone.”

Still, even some old-time residents see it a different way. The city, they say, is finally a way of getting closer and quicker service.

“Now everything is under the Board of Supervisors,” said Jim Smerber, who has lived in El Cerrito since 1949. “That supervisor is the only voice we have.”

Smerber said that he has had trouble keeping semitrailer trucks from parking in front of his house, and the county agencies have been spread too thin to help.

The trucks “are the wrong image,” he said. “I’m against that. I think some of the city rules and regulations would eliminate that. You call up the county and they say something like it’s not in their jurisdiction, that you should call Highway Patrol or that they can’t do much about it. You really aren’t going to get any action on that.”

For now, a quick resolution appears unlikely. Corona’s Eagle Valley annexation effort has been put on hold by the Local Agency Formation Commission until traffic and other problems can be resolved.

The developer, which offered to pay El Cerrito’s annexation costs, is debating whether to go ahead with the project or delay it indefinitely. Either way, many say the area will eventually be developed, probably into a large housing tract.

Even with the Eagle Valley annexation on hold, supporters vow to continue to seek El Cerrito’s annexation on their own. What it might come down to is a vote certified by the county to settle the matter.

“We don’t know whether we have a majority unless we have a county vote,” Kourkos said. “ . . . This is kind of like a war that is going on now.”