At their meeting last night, the Seal Beach City Council voted 5/0 to shelve any further consideration of the annexation of the unincorporated beachfront community of Sunset Beach. Even though the Sunset Beach residents have not formally voted their preferences, it has been widely reported that nearly all of the residents would choose to remain unincorporated, but it is not likely they will have that option. The lack of a formal vote notwithstanding, it is assumed that about 90% of the residents favor annexation by Seal Beach, rather than by Huntington Beach. The levers of power rest with the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission, otherwise known as LAFCO, which has unilateral decision-making authority.

Although the affected residents and their elected representative, County Supervisor John Moorlach, were opposed to the move, LAFCO voted 4/3 on July 8 to put Sunset Beach under the sphere of influence of Huntington Beach. This means that according to LAFCO, Huntington Beach is the most appropriate provider of municipal services to Sunset Beach.

According to LAFCO's project manager Bob Aldrich, at this date, neither city has filed any applications to change the status quo. He indicated that if the two cities filed competing annexation applications, it would be up to the LAFCO staff to sort through the applications and make a recommendation to the commission. However, both the LAFCO staff and the commission are already on record as favoring Huntington Beach. But after last night's action, there is very little chance that any application will come from Seal Beach in the foreseeable future.

If the application came from Huntington Beach, because they are more contiguous with Sunset Beach, their application could not be challenged by the Sunset Beach residents. On the other hand, if Seal Beach filed the application, because they share only a small contiguous border, the Sunset Beach residents would have an opportunity to challenge it.

According to the City of Seal Beach staff report presented to the City Council last night, the Huntington Beach City Council is likely to consider an annexation application soon. The staff report includes the following: "On July 31, 2009 the Huntington Beach City Council held a special meeting to review and update the strategic goals of the Huntington Beach City Council. Sunset Beach representatives attended and spoke to dispel any possible conception that it was only a small group of Sunset Beach people that did not want to go to Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach City Councilmember Gil Coerper stated he intended to introduce a motion to annex Sunset Beach in the September or October time frame. Councilmember Don Hansen expressed dismay over Sunset Beach residents rejecting Huntington Beach. Councilmember Jill Hardy stated that not all Councilmembers were in favor of annexation. Two Huntington Beach citizens spoke in favor of not annexing Sunset Beach. No formal action was taken."

However, the Huntington Beach mayor, Keith Bohr, spoke at last night's Seal Beach meeting and challenged those statements. In reference to the short time frame in which the Seal Beach staff report was prepared, he said "The staff report says that We had a short time frame, so we couldn't do good analysis. What's that time frame? Because you're afraid big bad Huntington Beach is going to do it first? We did not start this process. We're in no rush. There is a miss-quotation in the staff report {referring to the section quoted above} We're not going to do it until our analysis is complete, unless some how your actions force us to do a place holder action."

Thus, if Huntington Beach files an annexation application, which they can do without any input from the Sunset Beach residents, and LAFCO votes consistently with their previous vote in favor of Huntington Beach, the residents will become part of the City of Huntington Beach, whether they like it or not. This outcome appears even more likely now that there is not going to be a competing application from Seal Beach.