The County of Orange has a long standing policy of getting rid of unincorporated islands like Rossmoor. One way to accomplish this goal, often cited by Orange County Supervisor John M.W. Moorlach, is to join Rossmoor into a “super city” with Los Alamitos and Seal Beach. This idea is certainly not new, but there is some new financial information on the subject.

It is clear that Moorlach wants to rid Orange County of Rossmoor, but the options for accomplishing this are limited. In fact, there are only three choices: incorporate Rossmoor into an independent city, which was soundly rejected by the voters in 2008; the annexation of Rossmoor by either Seal Beach or Los Alamitos; or, combine Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach into one larger city.

One reason cited by Moorlach for Orange County to get rid of Rossmoor is based on financial data which at one time, apparently indicated that Rossmoor was a financial drain on the county. But new analysis doesn’t support that idea, and Moorlach seems to be backing away from the financial argument in favor of less tangible good governance reasons to rid the county of Rossmoor.

After a very quick review of the new financial analysis, which is still in draft form, OC180NEWS pulled out two important pieces of information. According to the analysis, rather than the often cited financial drain on the county of $600,000, the new analysis indicates Rossmoor is a net loss to Orange County of only $124,000.

Given the county’s $5.6 billion budget, plus the ambiguities of financial analysis, this small amount of money does not seem worth the trouble. Thus, we asked Rick Francis, Chief of Staff in Moorlach’s office about it.

OC180NEWS: Why should Rossmoor be annexed into another city?

RF: So that they can enjoy better, local government representation. Doing so also relieves the County of performing municipal service duties to an island that is distant from Civic Center. This entire ordeal – since the incorporation effort failed – has been a prime example of why local representation would serve the community more efficiently. We do not see this being carried out in the form of expanded latent powers. We’d rather work toward a more permanent solution. Incorporation or annexation are the solutions we’d prefer.

Moorlach has promoted the super city idea as a solution which would not only rid the county of a large unincorporated island, but would provide economies of scale to the local residents. The basic idea is that the cities could save money because they would not need more than one city manager, or police chief, or similar duplicated services and functions.

This leads us to the second interesting piece of information from the new financial analysis. According to the draft analysis, collectively, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach could possibly save as much as $2.8 million by combining operations. Again to Rick Francis –

OC180NEWS: If there is a savings from super-city consolidation of the three areas, who gets the savings?

RF: The taxpayers of those cities. If the administrative overhead is reduced in each area, as the report shows, it becomes less expensive to operate that city. Perhaps that can be a basis for a reduction of Utility User Taxes or enhanced services in other areas. A community like Rossmoor could see benefits such as dedicated traffic enforcement, which they have desired for years.

OC180NEWS: Is the analysis on consolidation now considered complete by your office?

RF: There may very well be other areas of consolidation to explore. However, we do not have current plans to request further information or analysis.

OC180NEWS: What are Supervisor Moorlach’s next steps on consolidation?

RF: He can only encourage city leaders to look hard at the long-term fiscal viability of their communities and determine if they have the will to achieve much greater efficiencies in service delivery and costs. He cannot force this to happen.

The Seal Beach City Council has made their position on the super city very clear – they aren’t interested. During the last three years, Seal Beach has considered the annexation of Sunset Beach, and Island Village. In both of these situations, the residents pleaded with the Seal Beach City Council to take them in. Whenever these issues have come up at a Seal Beach City council meeting, the Seal Beach residents have been very outspoken about their rejection of any changes to their city borders.

But, most of the discussion has focused on the financial detriment to Seal Beach of any annexations. So, with $2.8 million on the table, OC180NEWS asked a majority of the Seal Beach City Council if the extra money would change their perspective on the super city idea.

“The City of Seal Beach wants to remain the City of Seal Beach and doesn’t want to be consolidated. We are financially doing well enough in these economic conditions and I think the City of Seal Beach prefers to stay unto itself,” Seal Beach Councilman Gary Miller told OC180NEWS. “I’d say we’re not into the super city. We’re not in dire straights economically and I don’t even know that we’d do it then.”

“The two letter answer is N O,” Seal Beach Councilman Gordon Shanks told OC180NEWS. “We’re 25,000. We haven’t changed from our 25,000 since roughly 1970. We picked up 8 people from 2010 to 2011. That’s the kind of change we have here. The majority of the people do not want to see the city get any bigger and start picking up unknown problems. Why rock the boat? We’re happy as we are.”

“Seal Beach is not for sale,” Councilwoman Ellery Deaton told OC180NEWS. I believe in quality of life and quality of life requires small government. Governing smaller is governing better. Small communities have smaller problems. I feel very strongly about it. That’s why I moved to Old Town. I want to live in a small community that’s as self-sustaining as possible. For all my life I wanted to live in a small community, so for me, that’s what Seal Beach is about.”