The cost of Rossmoor pursuing latent Powers is a question that lingers in this new year of 2013.
For the past two years the Rossmoor Community Services District Board has aggressively pursued the obtaining of latent powers from the county.
This would involve the county transferring services now provided by the county to the RCSD. The most notable of the services is law enforcement (the Orange County Sheriff’s Department), even though the Rossmoor community has generally expressed satisfaction with the service provided by the Sheriff’s Department.
The stated reason by the RCSD for this pursuit is to head off annexation by Los Alamitos. But by law, any such initiative by Los Alamitos would result in a vote by the citizens of Rossmoor.
Thus, if Rossmoor doesn’t wish to be annexed, it wouldn’t matter whether the RCSD has latent powers or not.
This pursuit of latent powers comes with a cost to Rossmoor. In terms of dollars, the cost so far has been $60,000 for specialized legal and accounting services. This amount does not include the time spent by the District’s own legal counsels and the time spent by the RCSD staff which would bring the costs even higher.
It is interesting to note that the major part of these costs is being underwritten by the sheriff’s union (the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs).
The union obviously feels it would benefit by contracting directly with the RCSD for its services.
However, it is troubling that an outside interest would pay for an RCSD initiative that would then award them a contract.
There is also another price that this pursuit is costing Rossmoor: creating a contentious relationship with Supervisor John Moorlach which has cost us the goodwill of our representative in county matters that effect Rossmoor. This cannot be good for Rossmoor.
To top all this off, it is very unlikely that the county will grant latent powers to the RCSD as Mr. John Moorlach has stated his opposition and he is a member of the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission as well as the Board of Supervisors, the two agencies that would make such a determination.
We have to ask: Is all this worth it?
Erwin Anisman is a Rossmoor resident.
