If El Toro Incorporates, Cost of Services Will Go Up

El Toro is a middle-class community that is presently receiving a full range of municipal services through the county of Orange. El Toro’s crime rate is no higher than its sister community, Mission Viejo, which incorporated three years ago.

If we remain unincorporated, we take little risk of losing our present services or increasing our present costs.

As a matter of fact, we get a good bit of a “free ride” on the city taxpayers. The only things we pay extra for, through our local districts, is maintenance of our parks, our landscaping and street sweeping.

We are being asked to vote to incorporate El Toro. If we do this, we will be financially responsible for the results. If we run out of money, we can’t go back to the county and say: “We made a mistake.”

The county Local Agency Formation Commission staff, who is responsible for studying all city proposals, is the only group involved that could take an objective position on this issue. They have consistently recommended that El Toro should not be incorporated. Their main reasons for opposing this incorporation are financial.

The staff corrected the proposed surplus projected by the consultant to only 10%, and called even this amount, “very tenuous.” They showed that the petitions proposing this city promised a large increase in services but that the proposed budget did not include these increases.

The LAFCO staff report shows that El Toro would have a per capita income of $224 compared to $516 for Laguna Hills and $435 for Mission Viejo.

Why do we have so little compared to the others? Because when the boundaries were set, Laguna Hills was given 76 cents per capita of every sales tax dollar available to Laguna Hills and El Toro only 24 cents of every sales tax dollar. This was one other reason that the commission staff was against this incorporation. They said the sales tax split was unfair to the residents of El Toro. Laguna Hills got the gold mine, and El Toro got the shaft!

What will happen to us if we incorporate? We will run out of money. Can the City Council raise taxes? Since it takes a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, they won’t be able to. What can they do? They can either reduce services, or find other ways to raise money. What other ways can they raise money? Let’s look at what other cities in Orance County have done.

First, they can double or triple the permit charges to homeowners for home improvements. Next, they can raise the charge to homeowners for trash pickup and pocket the difference.

Then they can take over the Los Alisos and El Toro Water Districts by invoking “eminent domain.” They can bond us to pay for these districts, then, when they need more money, they can raise our water and sewer rates.

The biggest source of income for a city is sales tax. The way to get more sales tax income is to get new retail businesses to move in. This will greatly increase the traffic in El Toro, but the city will need the money. Do you think the above is a fantasy? In the last few years, every one of these methods has been used by cities in Orange County to raise money.

If we stay unincorporated, none of the above can happen to us, and we can keep the present services we have.

WILLIAM R. MILLAN, El Toro