Rural Areas Resist San Marcos’ Web

What if a fast-growing North County city invited all its rural fringes to join it in growing into a bigger and better community?

And what if all the outlying residents answered with an emphatic “no”?

Would that be the end of it?

Rural residents living as far as 15 miles away from the San Marcos City Hall learned recently that the expansion plans of the city into their peaceful neighborhoods cannot necessarily be stopped by a flood of negative sentiment. They are wondering if indeed it can be stopped at all.

Angry residents of rustic unincorporated enclaves such as Harmony Grove, Elfin Forest, Eden Valley, Gopher Canyon and Twin Oaks Valley bristle at the thought of coming under the control of a city with its street lights and sidewalks and stop signs and traffic signals. They want nothing to do with San Marcos and its plans to reach out and embrace them.

Despite the overwhelming opposition, the San Marcos City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a pared-down version of its plans. The proposal to put those areas within the city’s so-called sphere of influence now goes before the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, for a hearing in mid-May. By placing an area within its sphere of influence, a city is formally saying that it expects that land to become part of the city within the next decade or so.

But Dana Smith, the LAFCO analyst handling the San Marcos sphere of influence expansion, said that, before the city can annex any of the areas, residents will be given the right to vote on the annexation.

Wrath against the San Marcos City Council boiled over during a recent public hearing to receive comment on a proposal to add 14.4 square miles to the city, expanding its area by 50%.

The proposal takes in unincorporated areas next to Escondido on the east and elbows into the spheres of influence already claimed by Vista and Carlsbad to the west.

The expansion plan reaches down into the sparsely inhabited hills surrounding Elfin Forest and reaches out for the really rural areas to the north, from Interstate 15 to Bonsall. And in each area, the residents say they don’t want to have anything to do with suburban San Marcos.

City Planning Director Jerry Backoff said the negative comments prompted the city to scale back its proposal to less than 10 square miles.

Gopher Canyon area properties were excluded from the later San Marcos proposal as were portions of the properties abutting Escondido and Carlsbad.

Elfin Forest spokeswomen Evelyn Alemanni and Patti Newton put on a slide show that poked fun at the city’s plans to urbanize the horse estate community. Both women argued that San Marcos had never given Elfin Forest residents anything except a huge pile of garbage--”Mt. Trashmore”--North County’s only landfill.

San Marcos protects its open space “under a 6-inch layer of asphalt,” the two said, and derided Mayor Lee Thibadeau for his “land grab” policy. “Nearly every threat to our community begins and ends with San Marcos,” the duo said.

Thibadeau responded with a slide show of his own, showing the dense housing developments and over-graded hillsides allowed in the unincorporated areas surrounding the city.

The mayor branded Elfin Forest residents as “arrogant” and a “hate group.”

Twin Oaks Valley opponents also came in for a biting commentary from the mayor.

“They want nothing to do with us,” Thibadeau said, “but they don’t hesitate to come to us when they want us to help them fight an industrial project and a landfill.” Both are proposed along Interstate 15 frontage in the Twin Oaks Valley area.

Opponents to the San Marcos expansion proposal living in the northwest corner of the California 78-Interstate 15 freeway interchange stressed their allegiance to Escondido.

“We have social and economic ties with Escondido. We go to church in Escondido. Our children go to school in Escondido,” one speaker said. “Why, when more than 80% of the residents in the area have signed affidavits (certifying that they would rather be annexed to Escondido), do you continue to include us?”

San Marcos council members responded that the existing expansion program carries no immediate plans to annex any property but gives the city the right to be heard on any development plans under consideration by county supervisors--developments that affect the city’s roads and other public improvements.

“We’ve seen things going on at our boundaries, and we want to protect ourselves in the future,” Thibadeau said.