Incorporation Bids Win in Laguna Hills, El Toro and Calabasas

Rallying to a cry of local control, citizens in El Toro, Laguna Hills and Calabasas declared their independence from county governments Tuesday.

“It’s overwhelming; the culmination of so many years,” said new Calabasas City Councilman Marvin Lopata, who served as treasurer of the committee to make the community Los Angeles County’s 88th municipality. “My God, it’s here. We are a city.”

To the south in Orange County, Ellen Martin, chairwoman of Citizens to Save Laguna Hills, said, “We were confident cityhood would win, but we never wanted to take anything for granted.”

The final ballot count showed Measure H had won handily. The new city includes 23,000 residents and covers five square miles west of Interstate 5 and north of Laguna Niguel.

In nearby El Toro, Measure E--which called for the incorporation of a 15-square-mile area with a population of 58,000 north of Mission Viejo and east of Interstate 5--also won easily.

But the new city will also have a new name, because, in a separate ballot measure, voters decided on Lake Forest over El Toro, which came in a close second. Rancho Canada finished a distant third.

Creation of the two cities--the county’s 30th and 31st--continues a trend in the rapidly growing south county area that began in 1987, when Mission Viejo, followed by Dana Point and Laguna Niguel voted to incorporate.

Getting a chance to vote on a dream many of them have been working toward for more than a decade, Calabasas residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of breaking from the county.

Some 45% of the new city’s 5,265 registered voters cast ballots, with 91% of them favoring incorporation, according to final unofficial returns.

The incorporation involves an 11-square-mile area on the far western edge of the San Fernando Valley that is home to about 27,000 people.

The election, notable for the lack of any type of public opposition to cityhood, was a quiet culmination to an intense 11-year battle against developers, politicians and county bureaucrats, who opposed early incorporation efforts.

In the Antelope Valley, voters in the cash-hungry Lancaster School District rejected a $47-million bond measure to finance five new schools by increasing property taxes over 30 years.

The measure--which drew a 59% favorable vote, short of the needed two-thirds majority--was nearly identical to one fielded last April that fell 570 votes short. But district officials thought the measure would fare better this time, because a special one-issue election would bring out more voters who support the school system.