Los Alamitos Looks To Poll Residents on Rossmoor Annexation

Los Alamitos city leaders are looking to test public opinion about the potential annexation of the Rossmoor Shopping Village at the corner of Katella Avenue and Los Alamitos Boulevard.

Tonight the City Council will vote on weather to allocate nearly $15,000 to hire pollsters Probolsky Research, LLC to query residents on the controversial annexation measure.

The topic is not a new one for Probolsky Research. It’s the same company that the Rossmoor Community Services District hired to survey Rossmoor residents about the annexation, county services and the prospect of merging with Los Alamitos.

In the Rossmoor poll conducted last March, 82 percent of the people surveyed opposed letting Los Alamitos take Rossmoor’s commercial center.

“The firm is well-versed in local issues and would be instrumental in helping to frame

questions for a telephone survey of the community,” City Manager Jeff Stewart wrote in a staff report. “Staff envisions a survey of up to 25 questions among 300 members of the community.”

If the funding is approved tonight, the survey would query residents about the annexation as well as their opinions on city services and the direction in which the city is heading.

While residents in Rossmoor were clear about not wanting the commercial corner annexed nor merging all of Rossmoor with Los Alamitos, people in Los Alamitos have had little opportunity to weigh in on the matter. The commercial corner, which houses businesses such as T, and has long been coveted by Los Alamitos officials as the gateway to the city’s commercial area.

In his effort to divest the county of unincorporated county islands, County Supervisor John Moorlach has pressured Rossmoor into merging with another city. 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.

Before Rossmoor conducted its survey last spring, Los Alamitos Mayor Kenneth Stephens sent a letter to the Rossmoor Community Services District asking the agency to halt its telephone survey out of concern that Rossmoor would conduct a biased poll aimed at downplaying community interest in merging with the city.

In the letter on behalf of the Los Alamitos City Council, Stephens offered up to $10,300 to conduct a joint polling effort with Rossmoor to ascertain what residents in both communities want. Rossmoor officials rejected the offer and instead accepted a donation from the sheriff’s union to fund the survey.

What do you think? Should Los Alamitos annex Rossmoor or it's commercial center?