May 29, 2008
Rossmoor Cityhood Redux -- letting the people
vote -- of all the nerve
By LARRY STRAWTHER
Local Sports/Local Life Publisher
It seems unusually quiet on the community
front -- except LAFCO has decided to leave the decision of
incorporating to Rossmoor residents themselves, much to the
apparent dismay of many opponents who are apparently aghast
at letting the issue come to a vote of the people.
I have to admit I myself am not entirely
comfortable placing my destiny in the hands of a population
that put David Archuleta into the American Idol finals, but
I can only hope those voters not only came from somewhere
else but are having to take out second mortgages to pay for
the obscene numnber of multiple votes they made on their cell
phones.
In any case, it'll will be interesting
to see which way the wind will blow in Rossmoor this time.
Over the years Rossmoor-avians have turned down numerous chances
for cityhood, starting in October 1957 when Rossmoor only
had nine actual registered voters. Not being resistered didn't
stop a lot of new residents from signing a petition
for incorporation . This failed attampt was followed in
December by a half-hearted and equally unsuccessful attempt
to be annexed by Long Beach. In June and July of 1959, Rossmoor
made its second real try at incorporation, but the Rossmoor
Homeowners Association withdrew its petition after a RHA Meeting
showed a 34-2
vote against cityhood.
1960,
1961
and other years saw subsequent incorporation (1966, pt 1,
2,
3
& 4)
and annexation attempts, and in the process Rossmoor lost
what became the Rossmoor Highlands, the Rossmoor Center, the
Old Ranch Town Center (aka Target Center), the Old Ranch Golf
Course, College Park East, Spaghettini's, Bixby Office Park,
and most of the Naval Weapons Station north of Westminster.
We did however manage to keep the Rossmoor Wall -- which I
suppose is a fair trade
I'm not sure what we can lose out on this
time if we turn it down again, but residents might consider
locking down their RVs, before Seal Beach tries to annex them.
Okay, that probably wasn't a fair shot. Although LAFCO now
admits it allowed Seal Beach to steal Rossmoor 40 years ago,
our neighbors to the south did do it fair and square. Frankly,
Rossmoor can only blame itself for being dumb enough to let
them do it. First the Rossmoor Homeowners Association voted
34-2 in that 1959 vote that it didn’t want to incorporate.
Then they pressured Los Al to drop its bid to include the
Rossmoor Center in its incorporation plans. Then Rossmoor
en toto turned down incorporation in 1960 and 1961, and even
though it knew Garden Grove and Westminster wanted to grab
the Rossmoor Center, it did nothing and in effect allowed
Seal Beach to come in and grab it, lock, stock, and Boston
Store.
I haven't made up my mind yet on incorporation.
Which means my vote is potentially buyable -- if you're making
the right offer. The only thing I do know right now is that
nobody – I repeat nobody knows what will happen if Rossmoor
chooses to incorporate. The law of unintended consequences
always comes into play. Things are almost never as the “experts”
say they will be, because people always underestimate the
human factor – the greatest variable in any statistical
analysis.
If nothing else, the decision to let Rossmoor
vote in November has made things more difficult for the LAUSD
Board which has to decide whether to go after a bond issue
in November. Many think that with the current state of the
economy, and the possibility the Rossmoor issue may bring
out guaranteed professional naysayers in droves, the district
forego seeking to pass a bond issue this year. But the big
fat carrot of a potential 19 million dollar state matching
fund (which goes away after Dec. 31) is continuing to make
district administrators and board members almost drool over
that matching prize.
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