New O.C. City Puts a Gleam on Governing

The outside world may largely look upon Leisure World as the sunny place where seniors go to live out their final years playing shuffleboard and bingo, but residents this week vividly demonstrated they have something bigger in mind.

On Tuesday, by a 342-vote margin, residents created America’s first gated city made up of seniors. And on Wednesday, the community got down to the dull, unglamorous business of governance and delicately trying to heal the rift caused by the contentious cityhood campaign.

Outwardly, the place looked the same as ever--even though it will now go by a new name, Leisure World-Laguna Woods. People swam laps in the pool, teed off at the golf courses, pulled a few weeds and caught the bus to their destinations.

But there was a heady sense of occasion in the air--as the community with the hyphenated new name took its place in the national limelight.

“We can help seniors all around the country,” said Bob Ring, a leader in the cityhood campaign. “We know what the problems [of aging] are, what our life expectancy is and we know how to keep busy and independent. This gives us the right to take care of ourselves and govern ourselves.”

The five-member City Council-elect met and stumbled through a trial run. The council--ages ranging from 63 to 82--talked of hiring a city attorney, fretted about liability insurance and began discussing its first budget before March 24, when cityhood takes effect.

They know their neighbors are watching--closely. Cityhood passed by a slim majority--51.6% for and 48.4% against--and the impressive 68.6% voter turnout spoke to the importance of the matter for both sides.

“There are many more people waiting to see the new show in town,” said Jim Thorpe, appointed interim mayor, a post termed “the chair.”

“There are people who want to see we’re going to do all of the bad things they feared,” Thorpe said. “And there are people who want to make sure that we do all the good things we promised.”

‘They Have a Lot of Expertise’

Outsiders are poking and prodding the incorporation, drawing conclusions about what it means about how seniors live and exercise their increasing political influence.

And of course they’re wondering how things will go when this actively involved population has its own city to run.

“They have a lot of expertise in terms of experience out in the world,” said County Supervisor Tom Wilson, noting that retirees come from all sorts of professional disciplines.

Not everyone thinks the grand experiment of a gated city populated only by seniors is a good idea.

Mike Hunt, professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, pointed out that only 5% to 7% of older Americans live in age-segregated communities and he worries about retirees cloistering themselves from the external world.

Leisure World, he said, “just made themselves a separate society. They don’t have to be involved with the surrounding communities or anything.”

Fernando Torres-Gil, director of UCLA’s Center for Policy Research on Aging, said that most seniors are not like residents of Leisure World and wouldn’t think about starting their own city.

“My hope . . . is that it will not detract us from realizing that as they get older, most people are not thinking we should all move to Glendale and take it over as an old-age city,” he said.

More common, he said, are their worries about crime, health care and Social Security.

Even though the cityhood effort is a novelty, seniors have long flexed their political muscle. And there are more of them than ever.

This nation’s senior population has doubled since 1960 and will double again over the next 30 years because of the demographic explosion of children born in the years after World War II. And they have increasingly been the most sought-after sector of the electorate.

“The elderly are demon voters,” said Raymond Wolfinger, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley. “The government has created an interest group, namely the elderly, and it is making political activity worthwhile.”

Seniors Turn Out at Election Time

While 12% of the population is 65 or older, they make up 25% of the voters across the country during presidential elections, and the number grows to 30% while younger voters stay home during midterm elections, said Andrea L. Campbell, a doctoral candidate in political science at UC Berkeley who is writing her dissertation on senior political power.

Leisure World has long been a stable, active community that was catapulted into a larger political role almost single-handedly by its militant opposition to converting the nearby surplus El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a commercial airport.

“The airport issue coalesced and galvanized” much of Leisure World, which raised $500,000 to fight the airport plan, said Wilson, whose district includes the retirement community.

Cityhood supporters not only seized the airport issue, but fear over possible future annexation to a neighboring city whipped up votes to form a city.

Leisure World is only the fourth gated community in California to incorporate, joining Hidden Hills and Rolling Hills in Los Angeles County and Canyon Lake in Riverside County. It is Orange County’s 32nd city and its first new city since 1991.

But the bruising incorporation campaign has left clear victors and vanquished.

While municipal supporters are celebrating their newfound political might, some feel that the neighborly joys of living in an all-senior community may have been eroded.

The community, said Helen Ensweiler, head of the anti-incorporation group, “is very divided. It’s ugly. You wouldn’t think a retirement community could be like that.”

Still, community leaders hope friendship will prevail over political discord.

“After all is said and done, you can disagree, but you’re still my neighbors,” said Ring, who helped organize the cityhood drive.

Added Councilwoman-elect Ann Snider: “There’s a feeling of elation that it was settled, that we are going to be a city. And there’s some disappointment on the other side but most of those emotions are personal. Everyone feels happy that it’s over. I think it’s gonna be a little while until everything is smoothed out.”

Others, like city supporter Dave Blodgett, couldn’t resist some outright reveling.

“This is Southern California, this is Orange County,” he said. “It energizes us. I have more time at 78 than at 40, when I was working full time. Age doesn’t mean anything.”

Political anomaly or not, Leisure World shows what’s possible in a rapidly graying nation where the demographics of age can make a difference.

“If there’s a lesson,” said Judith Treas, professor of sociology at UC Irvine, “it has to do with the fact there’s a lot of room in the political process for people who have what older people have, namely time and community contacts.”

Times staff writer David Haldane and correspondent Chris Ceballos contributed to this report.