Politics & Government

It's Official: Rossmoor Residents Prefer the Status Quo Over a Union with Los Alamitos

A survey of Rossmoor voters says they support push for localized authority.

A Rossmoor voter survey released Monday night may have given community leaders the political capital needed to petition the county for local authority over police, animal control and trash services.

A poll of 300 Rossmoor voters found that most residents would prefer to keep the community operating in exactly the same way it has for the last 40 years. However, if the status quo is not an option because of county pressure to merge with Los Alamitos, the next most popular option among voters is to be annexed by Seal Beach rather than Los Alamitos. But since Seal Beach officials have expressed an unwillingness to take on Rossmoor, the next option favored by Rossmoor voters is to take authority over police and animal control from the county and place it in the hands of the Rossmoor Community Services District.

The district’s board will vote on whether to seek additional powers from the county at its April 12 meeting.

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“I do not support anything that would incur additional costs to this community in the short or long term,” said Eric Christensen, a member of the Rossmoor Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to the Rossmoor Community Services District board of directors. “We have to make sure that whatever we do doesn’t adversely affect the community.”

Rossmoor community leaders have said they feel backed into a corner by Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach’s drive to rid the county of unincorporated islands such as Rossmoor.

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Moorlach has advocated a number of options for Rossmoor, including merging with Los Alamitos and Seal Beach to form a “supercity”; being annexed by Los Alamitos; paying a utility tax high enough to cover the county’s costs for providing services to Rossmoor; and accepting police and animal control services from Los Alamitos in exchange for giving the city Rossmoor’s only commercial center.

None of those options resonated with voters, according to the survey.

Only 10 percent of those polled wanted to be annexed by a neighboring city, and only 33 percent of them wanted to be annexed by Los Alamitos over Seal Beach. Only 38 percent of the voters wanted police services from Los Alamitos, and 82 percent opposed letting Los Alamitos take Rossmoor’s commercial center at the corner of Los Alamitos Boulevard and Katella Avenue.

Moorlach’s approval rating among those polled was 23 percent.

When asked if they would support Rossmoor’s grab for latent powers as long as it didn’t cost residents more money, 70 percent of respondents favored the move. Additionally, 47 percent of respondents favored the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for police services as opposed to the 38 percent who preferred the Los Alamitos Police Department.

That support for latent powers is enough for the district to vote on plans to petition the county for the transfer of police, animal control and trash hauling oversight, said Henry Taboada, general manager for the Rossmoor Community Services District.

The wrangling over Rossmoor’s future has elements of a chess match to it.

The county’s efforts to give the commercial property to Los Alamitos in exchange for services paves the way for the city to annex Rossmoor. The county has outlined a strategy of overcoming community resistance to annexation by first familiarizing residents to the services of the annexing city. Similarly, the loss of the sales tax revenue from the commercial corner would make it essentially impossible for Rossmoor to pay for its own services or to one day become a city.

Conversely, Rossmoor’s drive for latent powers isn’t just about acquiring local authority over police, animal control and trash hauling services. Rossmoor officials also see it as a way to stave off pressure to merge with Los Alamitos and to stop the county from giving Rossmoor’s commercial corner to Los Alamitos.

The survey is a key component in the drive for latent powers because the county would require proof of community support before it would agree to expand the community services district’s authority. Last week, Moorlach and Los Alamitos officials called into question the integrity of the survey suggesting the outcome would be biased in favor of the district contracting with the sheriff’s department for services because the poll was funded by the sheriff’s union.

On Monday, Rossmoor officials offered the mixed findings of the survey as proof of its impartiality.

In turn, they questioned Moorlach’s impartiality as a voting member of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees annexation issues.

Moorlach’s public statements indicate that he has already made up his mind about issues that haven’t yet come up for a vote, said Christensen.

“We are going to take the position through council that he is disqualified from voting on anything related to Rossmoor,” Christensen said. “He’ll love it.”

Editor’s Note: You can view the complete survey findings in the photo gallery to the right of this article.


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