People involved in the drive to make La Jolla its own city scored a win just recently when the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) announced the Association for the City of La Jolla (ACLJ) had collected sufficient valid signatures to start the process of forming a city.
LAFCO is the county office that oversees the creation of new cities and it has determined that the secession movement had collected more than the 6,750 signatures.
In doing so, LAFCO reversed the Registrar of Voter’s decision that some of the ACLJ’s petition signatures were invalid.
San Diego Mayor Gloria is not having it and called LAFCo’s decision “outrageous.” He has vowed to explore legal action against the county agency.
In a statement, Gloria said:
“The City formally objected to many of LAFCO staff’s interpretations, including the allowance of names not matching registered voter data, incorrect addresses and ZIP codes, incomplete addresses, and illegible submissions already rejected by the Registrar. To ensure full transparency regarding LAFCO’s override of the ROV’s Certification of Insufficiency, the City will issue a formal Letter of Objection and continue to explore the legal options available.”
Yet, members of ACLJ are not retreating. Dian Kane, vice president of the group said:
“We would like to make this the jewel it was many years ago. It’s lost a lot of its luster, and we just want to fix it for everybody.”
Kane has a list of issues that she says La Jollans can do better by themselves, like “balancing new development with preserving our heritage, protecting natural habitat” and infrastructure problems.
It’s fixes they say the city of San Diego would no longer have to pay for, allowing the mayor to concentrate his focus on other communities like South San Diego, which flooded last year.
Ed Witt, ACLJ treasurer, joined in:”The Local Agency Formation Commission follows a different part of the code to state law.” He added, “Todd is a great guy, but he’s wrong.”
“We think we can take that burden away from the city for our infrastructure and save them money and save them liability and make La Jolla and the city of San Diego better for everyone.”
As NBC7 reported:
La Jolla generates nearly $84 million in revenue for the city of San Diego, according to the ACLJ’s preliminary fiscal analysis. But LAFCO says any split must be revenue neutral for San Diego, meaning “the city of San Diego doesn’t lose a dime,” according to Witt.
He and the ACLJ argue the city could potentially make money by contracting out emergency services.
LAFCO will now start drafting a final certified financial analysis.
Ultimately, the decision to split will be put to a vote of all San Diegans.
The Association for the City of La Jolla said more than 7,000 signatures were collected, reported NBC 7’s Dana Williams.
This secession movement is a double-edged sword for San Diego. La Jolla is undoubtedly the wealthiest neighborhood in the larger city, so its loss will be felt financially by San Diego. But it’s also a sign of how communities of San Diego have become disaffected by the policies and practices of Gloria’s metropolitan area. This feeling is shared by countless other neighborhoods across the city.
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