Sunset Beach has determined to keep up the fight for independence.
At last Thursday’s meeting of the Sunset Beach Community Association, longtime residents of the iconoclastic beachfront neighborhood and some of its concerned citizens voted to start a petition drive. It is the community’s first official step toward an uphill battle to become its own Orange County city.
The drive’s goal is to convince permitting bodies such as the LAFCO (the Local Agency Formation Commission) and others that Sunset Beach can stand on its own as a city.
Meanwhile, officials at the county level such as Supervisor John Moorlach, over the past few years have pushed for unincorporated “islands” of neighborhoods such as Rossmoor and Sunset Beach, which is not a part of a city to become annexed or joined with cities.
County official say they want to “divest” themselves of the financial burden of providing services for the areas not taxed through a city system.
Officials for the county of Orange have pushed for the city of Huntington Beach to annex Sunset Beach and put the question behind them.
Questions remain:
Is Sunset Beach’s population big enough to be a city?
According to Greg Griffin, president of the Sunset Beach Community Association, the answer is “Yes.”
Can Sunset Beach provide enough revenue to be a city?
Again, Griffin said: “Yes,” that there is enough or more thanks to a vibrant business district that sits adjacent to the seaside community.
“What we need to take the next step is to collect enough signatures on the petition,” Griffin said. “What we need is a minimum of 25 percent of the registered voters from Sunset Beach. We need a minimum of 500 signatures.”
Griffin said he would like to see more than the required signatures so that those in charge of the drive toward Sunset Beach as a city would know there is a mandate of the people in the community.
If the petition drive succeeds, the next step would be to appeal to the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) to hear Sunset’s application to become a city.
After that, Griffin said, Sunset would need a vote of at least 51 percent of Sunset residents to approve of the neighborhood’s move toward cityhood.
Griffin said the Sunset Beach Community Association would rely on a committee of association members and others to collect the needed signatures on the petition drive.
“We need to have public support,” Griffin said. “Without that we don’t know what we are fighting for.”
