Hope Incorporated

They’re having millennium dreams in Rancho Santa Margarita, which may become a city Jan. 1, 2000, if tightly scheduled plans by cityhood leaders and incorporation officials fall into place.

Leaders of efforts to turn the Saddleback foothill area into a full-fledged city said an election is being tentatively scheduled for Nov. 2. But the plan still depends on negotiating an agreement on sharing tax revenues with the county, which currently governs the community.

“That would be really fun--we are excited about that,” said cityhood leader Gary Thompson about the prospect of becoming the first Orange County city of the new millennium.

It also would culminate four years of work by Thompson and others to make the change from an unincorporated, master-planned community to a city in charge of its own destiny.

It’s been a decidedly grass-roots effort. A fund-raiser will be held Wednesday under a tent in the parking lot of the local Target store, with participants playing bingo for Beanie Babies. Town meetings are held in the local water district meeting hall. “It’s the only place we can get for nothing,” Thompson said. And the cityhood board meets at the only place available--its members’ homes.

But this community of young families is not without resources. The cityhood drive is going to end up costing them more than $100,000, and leaders must deal almost daily with county officials and consultants from around the state.

Similar cityhood ambitions have spread across south Orange County. Residents of Leisure World will vote on their proposed incorporation March 2. Residents of Coto de Caza, adjacent to Rancho Santa Margarita, have filed their own application for incorporation, but residents aren’t expected to vote this year. And Aliso Viejo residents are expected

to apply for cityhood later this year.

Like their neighbors, many of Rancho Santa Margarita residents want local control over both their future and their financial lives.

“It really comes down to local control,” Thompson said. “What kind of city ordinances do we want? What kind of facilities do we want?

“We’re not saying the county’s doing anything wrong, but the county may have different priorities than the community has,” he said.

Among some residents, cityhood would express a sense of local pride in an area they view as having the atmosphere, amenities and affordability they couldn’t find elsewhere.

“The schools are amazing, it’s young, it’s family oriented, it’s got what we need,” said Sheri Gavish, spending a recent sunny morning wheeling 13-month-old son Noam around Lake Santa Margarita, a carefully landscaped local landmark.

Walking along with the Gavishes were Candi Wuhrman and 17-month-old son Joshua. “We’ve got a Trader Joe’s and a Target store. Doesn’t that make us a city?” she asked.

But it’s not a pride rooted in generations of homesteaders, because Rancho Santa Margarita is a new community, and most of its inhabitants are new residents. The Wuhrmans have lived there a year, the Gavishes just a month.

Even cityhood leader Thompson, a U.S. Navy planning director in San Diego who has lived in Rancho Santa Margarita since 1987, was among the first 1,500 settlers to move into the master-planned community, which now numbers between 30,000 and 35,000 residents. Situated on the Plano Trabuco plateau, it’s a symbol of the convulsive growth of South County.

“You don’t see the flag-waving for incorporation that we had a few years ago among our people, but they’re gung-ho about it,” Thompson said. “They know it’s coming; they’re just waiting it out.”

And there are several steps to go, one of them quite sensitive, said Peter Banning, project manager of Rancho Santa Margarita’s incorporation drive for the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO).

Under state “revenue neutrality” laws, a new city must first negotiate with the county on how to split the tax revenues from within the borders of the newly created entity. To be “revenue neutral” the new city can’t keep more revenue than it needs to provide an acceptable level of services and must pay any surplus to the county.

Banning said that without such a law, islands of revenue-rich commercial and retail activity could incorporate, capturing the tax wealth and disproportionately depriving the county of funds it needs to continue serving the remaining unincorporated areas.

“It has to be fair, to both sides,” said Banning, an outside consultant to LAFCO.

However, Orange County has traditionally been supportive of incorporation efforts and would be reluctant to insist on keeping so much revenue that the area would be financially crippled and unable to form a city.

Negotiating teams will be convened in the next few weeks. Assuming an agreement is reached on revenues, LAFCO will hold hearings in March or April to determine the exact boundaries of the cities. Banning said the future of surrounding communities such as Robinson Ranch, Dove Ranch and Las Flores would have to be considered, with parts of those communities possibly joining the future city of Rancho Santa Margarita.

Coto de Caza residents have rejected proposals to join with Rancho Santa Margarita. Coto de Caza’s own cityhood application is on hold, awaiting a first-stage financial study, Banning said.

That leaves Leisure World, which votes March 2, as Orange County’s potential 32nd city, and Rancho Santa Margarita as its 33rd if an election is held in November.

A successful November election would clear the way for the county’s first “Y2K city,” an inspiring prospect to cityhood boosters.

“That would be just great,” Thompson said.