Details Gel in Leisure World’s Bid for Cityhood

With their bid for cityhood finally landing on next year’s county ballot, Leisure World residents on Wednesday shored up the details, including map boundaries and their top three name choices for the one-of-a-kind town.

The petitioning residents met for the third time with the Local Agency Formation Commission to decide just how the plan should look for a city of 20,000 where the average age is 77. The county Board of Supervisors already has voted to place the issue on the March 2 ballot for residents to decide, and the commission has given the idea its blessing.

The commission “agreed with us that we would be financially viable on our own,” said Betty Hohwiesner, president of the Leisure World Residents for Cityhood. “But we’ve always known we’d be a rich little city.”

Everything else “is cake,” she said, such as choosing a name, electing council members and deciding their borders. The group decided Wednesday on a 2,000-acre city comprised mostly of the 3.2-mile gated community of Leisure World. Beyond the walls, eight commercial strips, three vacant lots and three small senior residential communities also would fall within the city’s boundaries.

“It’s coming together,” said Bob Ring, an official with the Golden Rain Foundation, Leisure World’s governing board. “We’re on our way. Finally.”

Leisure World residents recently collected 188 proposals for names and whittled them down to their favorite three, which they presented Wednesday to the commission: Laguna Verde, Laguna Heights and Laguna Woods. Many of the scrapped suggestions came from residents opposed to incorporation, including Viagra Village and Geezerville. Laguna Pills, Golden Gates and Interludes also didn’t make the cut, Ring said.

“We had a little fun with it and so that’s all that matters,” Ring said of the naming contest. “We may be old, but we still have humor.”

In fact, if the effort succeeds, Leisure World may be the first community of senior citizens to band together as a city, according to League of Cities representatives.

The last serious attempt to incorporate Leisure World faded in 1992. Although a study contracted by the Golden Rain Foundation showed that incorporation would mean an additional $1 million a year in revenue, backers encountered resistance from the community and the issue never went to a vote.

Although the latest push for incorporation appears to have stronger support, Ring and other advocates suspect that a largely silent group of seniors may again resist the change. Proponents have tried to persuade them that a new city not only would bring more revenue but would have more muscle to oppose the proposed commercial airport at El Toro and to control what is now unincorporated commercial land just outside the gates.

At least three other Orange County communities are working to incorporate, including Foothill Ranch, Rancho Santa Margarita and Aliso Viejo.

But Helen Ensweiler, a resident who has often been the lone opposition voice at Golden Rain Foundation meetings, said she is holding on to hope that it doesn’t happen to Leisure World.

“I keep thinking we won’t have a new name or any of the stuff that comes with it,” she said. “It’s just another layer of government that we don’t need. We just don’t.”

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O.C.’s 32nd City?

Boundaries of a proposed city to be made up of Leisure World and surrounding areas were unveiled Wednesday. The cityhood proposal goes before county voters March 2. Leisure World, a gated community, would make up 85% of the new city.

Proposed city:

Size: 3.2 square miles (Stanton: 3.1 square miles)

Estimated population: 20,000 (Laguna Hills: 25,000)

Average age in Leisure World: 77 (O.C. median age: 31.5)

Proposed names: Laguna Heights, Laguna Verde, Laguna Woods

* Some of the proposed names for the new city as rejected by Leisure World residents:

Fun City

Good Age

Leisure Life City

Playtime

Rx

Leisure Land

Mandalay

Laguna Pills

Golden Gates

Interludes

Geezerville

Viagra Village

Sources: Local Agency Formation Commission, cityhood petitioner Robert Ring