A Seal Beach/Los Alamitos Supercity Would Save $2.8 Million, Report Finds

It seemed like County Supervisor John Moorlach’s vision of a Supercity comprised of Seal Beach, Rossmoor and Los Alamitos was crushed when Seal Beach officially opposed the merger, and Rossmoor came out strongly against any marriage with Los Alamitos.

But this week, Moorlach is hoping that the raw numbers will seduce city leaders. In “Shared Services Case Study,” a fiscal analysis of Rossmoor, Seal Beach and Los Alamitos, analysts found that a merger could save taxpayers $2.8 million.

Moorlach, in his role as Orange County supervisor, has a track record absorbing unincorporated islands like Rossmoor into neighboring cities. Moorlach has said time and again that Rossmoor is a “financial drain” on the county. He has long decried the duplication of services and waste of money that goes into serving county islands that could easily be served by neighboring cities.

Rossmoor officials had been waiting months for the report in hopes that it would prove or disprove Moorlach’s claim that Rossmoor is a drain on county resources. But Henry Taboada, Rossmoor Community Services District manager, called the report meaningless, saying it was based on “inaccurate numbers, assumptions and extrapolations.”

“This report provides data that show Rossmoor’s finances are in good order, but it doesn’t lend itself to the question of whether or not Rossmoor is a financial drain,” he said. “We are just amazed that after all of this time, the county has yet to produce any data that supports Moorlach’s claims with regards to our financial state being a drain on Orange County.”

The analysis indicates Rossmoor is a net loss to the County of only $124,000. If you compare that to the county’s $5.6 billion budget, $124,000 doesn’t seem to be “financially draining,” Taboada said. 

So what did the report actually find?

Collectively, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach could possibly save as much as $2.8 million by combining operations and city staffs. There is a positive increase in the annual General Fund surplus of up to $2,756,455 over the total of the combined cities and Rossmoor. This is due primarily to the new revenues that would be available to a city by annexing the Rossmoor community as well as reductions in staff. Approximately $1,700,130 could be saved through a reduction in staff. Additionally, there is an unknown potential for long term savings is in future retirement and benefits savings, the report found. 

According to the report, “The analysis concludes that a consolidation of services or agencies has some potential benefits for increasing efficiency of municipal services, for reducing taxpayer costs for providing those services, and for still maintaining existing service levels.”

And Moorlach agreed, saying the report didn’t change his mind on wanting to move forward in incorporating Rossmoor into either Los Alamitos or Seal Beach.  In fact, he has made it his top priority for 2012 for Los Alamitos to annex the Rossmoor Shopping Village, a first step in eliminating the island itself.

“The report is intuitive,” he said. “If you merge, you don’t need three headquarters, two city halls, two city managers, a RCSD general manager, two police chiefs — the savings are pretty considerable for the size of that area, and honestly there could probably even be more if a full merger was ever consummated.”

The report found room for a reduction of 16 full time positions, primarily in management and administration.

But even if there are benefits to merging, the politics and process aren’t that simple. 

Moorlach said the options for Orange County to divest itself of Rossmoor are rather limited. In fact, there are three: incorporate Rossmoor into an independent city, which was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in 2008; the annexation of Rossmoor by either Seal Beach, who has said no, or Los Alamitos, who has showed great interest; or, combine Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach into one larger city.

Noting his track record of annexing islands, Moorlach said he sees “annexing islands as good government.”

 “When are certain municipalities going to see that it will benefit them if they merge? Los Alamitos has been waiting 50 years to get that corner, Rossmoor had a chance to be a city and didn’t want to, it’s on to plan B now.”

But there has been no financial analysis to convince Rossmoor residents that their only option is to merge with another city, said Taboada. The latest report doesn’t prove that Rossmoor is a drain on county coffers, he said.

“We are at a real disadvantage because we don’t know what we are up against, they keep telling us that we are too expensive and they need to get rid of us, but there is no proof, no numbers, no analysis,” he said.

 “We are being boxed in on two fronts,” he said. “And Moorlach is again making it clear that we are something that he wants to get rid of.”

 What do you think? Is there merit in a merger? Tell us in the comments.