DANA POINT : Board OKs Sanitary, Water District Union

The directors of a small, 46-year-old water district in Capistrano Beach this week voted unanimously to merge with a neighboring sanitary district, setting the stage for the first of several special district consolidations expected this year in Dana Point.

The five-member board of the Capistrano Beach County Water District Wednesday voted to merge with the 66-year-old Capistrano Beach Sanitary District, a move that had been resisted for decades.

Now is finally the time to act, water district officials said. The water district vote to consolidate comes while a county commission is studying the possibility of merging all six water-related districts in the city into one “super” district.

“We think the single-district scenario would be a mess,” said director Jim Hayton, a carwash owner in Dana Point. “This allows us to protect our assets, which our customers have paid for all these years.”

The Capistrano Beach County Water District, which serves about 6,000 customers in Dana Point Harbor, north San Clemente, Dana Point and Capistrano Beach, owns several properties including the district office on Victoria Boulevard, the neighboring county fire station, two reservoirs and about 12 inactive well sites in San Juan Creek.

The water district also has about $3 million in the bank, according to district records.

A 2-year-old study of a possible merger of the two districts done by Boyle Engineering Corp. of Newport Beach estimates that there would be a savings of between $150,000 to $250,000 annually because of such things as combining personnel and offices.

The five directors of the sanitary district have agreed to the merger in concept although they have not taken a formal action, said Jim Forrester, the board president and a county firefighter. He said his board has attempted to merge with the water district for several years but have been rebuffed by the water board.

“Our board has always been interested in this,” said Forrester, 35, a nine-year board member. He suggested the new members elected to the water board in 1992 were more “positive” toward consolidation.

Forrester said the sanitary district directors had also approached the Dana Point Sanitary District board and suggested they join in the merger but “it seems they would rather wait a little longer” than accept consolidation at this time.

The sanitary district serves about 3,500 customers, nearly all within the boundaries of the water district in the Capistrano Beach and north San Clemente area. The sanitary district has “slightly less than $1 million” in savings and owns a treatment plant and 30 acres of undeveloped land along the creek that could be used by both districts, Forrester said.

The two districts can merge by vote of the directors but the action must still be approved by the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission.