Feb
5
Time to move part of O.C. to Long Beach? Public Hearing this Monday, 2/8
Filed Under Commission Meetings, Planning & Zoning
(2/5/2010, Los Alamitos) In response to recommendations by Orange County and by the City of Long Beach, a Public Hearing will be held Monday night at Los Alamitos City Hall about moving parts of El Dorado Park Estates Imperial Estates and other border areas from Los Al to Long Beach or vice versa.
The intent is to straighten out a border that predated the current route of the Coyote “Creek” flood control channel. The current boundary certainly appears to be an anachronism at least and life-threatening at worst.
The public hearing comes late in a P.C. agenda that also includes several other items.
Crazy Divisions of Two Neighborhoods
“Area 3:” East sides of Berner, Marna, & Lilly Avenues: As it stands now the 33 homes on the east side of the streets that form the eastern boundary of El Dorado Park Estates are in Los Alamitos, in Orange County and in the Los Al U.S.D., while homes across the two small streets are in Long Beach, in L. A. County, and in the L.B.U.S.D. This area continues south across Cerritos (Spring) and also includes all 37 detached condos in The Bungalos: the tract is in Los Al but it’s on the west side of the “Creek.”
“Area 2:” A similar situation exists in the southeast corner of Imperial Estate, just north of Ball Road between Bloomfield and the Coyote Creek flood control. Once again the majority of the tract is in Long Beach, but this time it’s on the Los Alamitos “side” of the “Creek,” and the division is even more crazy than in El Dorado Park Estates. Here the County/City/School District Line cuts diagonally through the southeast corner of the tract, across four different streets. About 20 homes and a small strip center are in Los Alamitos, but the lion’s share of the tract, 192 homes, are in Long Beach even though they’re on the “O.C. side” of the “Creek.”
“Area 1:” This same line continues across Ball (Wardlow) through the northeast corner of Los Alamitos’ College Park North, but only a small, vacant, land-locked parcel is involved. The parcel adjoins Los Alamitos’ Stansbury Park and 7 C.P.N. homes.
What’s wrong with this picture?
At least two things:
- The current, confusing border makes it far too easy for the wrong emergency responders to sometimes arrive at the “misplaced” homes. Lives and property are literally at unnecessary risk.
- Emergency responders, trash companies, street sweepers, city crews, and paving companies all are forced to travel out of their way to service the minority sections of the two major tracts.
One could also argue that the line as currently drawn is not only a dinosaur from earlier years but is illogical and counterintuitive.
Long Beach’s Conclusion
The Long Beach City Council conducted a Study Session on the issues, and would like to see Area 3 (Eastern El Dorado Park Estates) absorbed into Long Beach, Area 1 (the vacant lot) absorbed into Los Alamitos, and Area 2 (the bulk of Imperial Estates) to remain in Long Beach, but only if Los Alamitos is also interested.
A Logical Solution?
Defuse the issue with school district choice: At this point, the school district lines are not in play. It seems to me that, for at least the next decade or two, regardless of what actions are taken, residents in the affected areas should be free to choose between the LBUSD and LAUSD. That probably makes the city/county line placement less significant for the homeowners, and would give them greater peace of mind and complete control of where their kids go to school.
Parcel 3 (the vacant lot): To me this one’s fairly simple–put it in the same county and city that most of the west side of the “Creek” is in–Los Alamitos. It might be smart, however, to pre-negotiate with the property owner to see if the parcel might be donated to the city for expansion of Stansbury Park, or possibly given or sold to some or all of the adjoining residential lots. It makes sense to know what the city’s going to do with the vacant lot before we take it. Still, it also seems logical that homeowners in Los Alamitos’ CPN shouldn’t have to call Long Beach Police when illegal activity is taking place directly behind their homes or park.
Parcel 1 (EDP, Bungalos): It seems logical that the 33 homes in El Dorado Park Estates should be in the same city as their neighbors across the street, with the same emergency responders, street sweeping, and trash pickup. The bungalos are a self contained tract that is not split, so the reasons for moving those condos to Long Beach aren’t as compelling, but the move still makes sense.
Parcel 2 (Imp. Estates): A 3rd alternative: Here where what makes the most sense to me is a reverse of what has been considered so far. Since about 80% of the land in the tract east of the “Creek” is in Long Beach, it might make sense to consider adjusting the border by moving the small Los Alamitos corner of the tract into Long Beach. An argument could, however, be made to keep the adjoining strip mall on the northwest corner of Bloomfield and Ball in Los Alamitos, for the sake of continuity of the intersection itself.
Time for the Council to hold a study session?
The way to reach the best decision might be for the City Council to do what Long Beach’s City Council did and conduct a study session on the issues involved, including those raised at Monday’s Public Hearing during the Planning Commission meeting.
The ideas above are only one local resident’s opinion, but it is an effort towards steps that might improve the situation. They are primarily presented to get the discussion here rolling.
What do you think?
Express it here and, if you’re passionate about it, express it Monday night at Los Al City Hall, or at least by e-mail to the Planning Commission (I couldn’t locate an e-mail for the P.C., but sending it to them via Director of Development Steven Mendoza might work: smendoza@ci.los-alamitos.ca.us.)
Comments
4 Responses to “Time to move part of O.C. to Long Beach? Public Hearing this Monday, 2/8”
Leave a Reply
I really find it hard to believe that the fire or paramedic’s can’t permanently figure this out.
There is probably much more at stake here if we all knew the back story.
There is ALWAYS more going on behind the scenes that the residents will ever know.
Lets see who show’s up!! If the residents that are affected don’t show then… OH Well!!
If they do show up then I think as neighbors we should support them.
The city council should support them also, that is, if it doesn’t go against their agenda.
Hope it’s a full house Monday night.
I really don’t see any big backstory or conspiracy here–just the wheels of county government slowly grinding.
In this case, I think it’s a good thing–the Orange County Local Agency Formation Committee took a look at an ancient boundary that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and developed options for the affected cities to consider.
The OCLAFC’s report was issued in June of 2008, and eventually, last December, city staff brought this to the Council’s attention, suggesting it be referred to the P.C.
So far, it’s been city staff moving the matter forward. Is it as important as increasing the sales tax base of dealing with traffic? I don’t think so. Still, it’s a way to make government more efficient that actually could save a life.
However, it’s hardly a case of the Council acting proactively to tackle a top priority for the city–an event that’s all too rare, in my opinion, although it does happen on occasion. More often, it’s just the staff passing on whatever comes up, as is the case here. Or, some Council Member with a daughter who plays water polo deciding the City needs to spend $50,000 a year subsidizing a pool on the base that’s deep enough for water polo. Maybe a good idea, maybe not, but hardly a top priority. . . or cost effective.
That’s not a unique problem to this Council majority or to Los Alamitos. It’s just the way bureaucracies and committees and politicians all seem to function.
Actually, our Council has developed a relatively proactive list of priorities for the year that include several items aimed at improving sales tax revenue.
The PC meeting was standing room only. They set up chairs outside for all the LA/LB residents. There was 1.5 to 2 hours of comments. Most said the same thing.
1. Los Alamitos residents want to stay in Los Al
2. Long Beach residents want to be in Los Al.
The reasons were: Long Beach does not take care of this section of their city no matter how much they ask them. Trees never trimmed, streets not maintained. Noise because trash is picked up more than one day a week. Los Al pizza can not be delivered to LB. The residents want LB to release them and they want Los al to fight to annex them. OC register will not deliver to LA County even though the paper is deliver two doors down. The list goes on and on.
Emergency services are mostly duplicated, in that, everybody shows up, but no one knows who should take the lead.
The meeting was to take comments, now the PC will send a report to the city council.
I agree with the 2/8/10…
From experience,there always is something going on behind the scenes that the people will never know. It may be a favor some politician in Long Beach owes another,or something/someone linked higher up the food chain at the county or state level. Paramedic response time and confusion as to who should take the lead? Hardly! Have a joint meeting of first responders and deal with the issue. Include the Register and the Pizza delivery man as they have more day to day impact.
Remember when you hear the phrase, “For the good of the City”… ‘City’ does not necessarily mean the citizens of Los Alamitos or Long Beach. It means the corporate entity called, “The City of Los Alamitos” (or Long Beach). That “Good of the city” generally results in benefits to staff or individual politicians. To the extent it actually benefits the citizens is generally purely coincidental and incidental.
This boundry question is a perfect example of citizen benefits or impacts being completely ignored. Those boundries were set years ago, no doubt as a result of political gerrymandering to benefit some politicans at the higher levels of government. And now it is going on again.
Have we not heard the ads on the radio requesting people to apply to be on some “citizen” committee to help in the mandated re-districting effort? What politician(s) is going to benefit from that? And at what expense to those affected?
In this case the affected are those next to the boundry adjustments. If all of the homes are located in the same city and/or the same county the affects may be negligable (eg. Rosmoor annexation). However in this case those affected straddle not only a city boundry but also a county boundry. The affects are far from negligible, they are catastrophic for those who now live in Orange County in the City of Los Alamitos.
The starting point for the decision makers either on the Planning Commission or the City Council should be, “First, Do no harm”.
The devasting financial harm in lost property values to the citizens who bought or rent homes to live in a city (Los Alamitos)with great schools and an Orange County address is too great. To summarily dump Los Alamitios residents (even one)into the financial pit that is LA county only to be neglected by the City of Long Beach would be beyond reason and justification.
The PC and the CC should summarily dismiss the LAFCO report and end the angst being caused to these fellow Los Alamitos residents.