With an eye toward the mega city of Huntington Beach poised to swallow it up by annexation, the beachfront community of Sunset Beach continues to scramble to remain independent by becoming its own city.
On Thursday, June 3, the Sunset Beach Community Association voted to issue what can be considered its own Declaration of Independence to the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission.
On Monday, Sunset Beach Community Association President Greg Griffin, and a small delegation, hand-delivered a petition to commission that can play a major role in deciding the fate of a coastal neighborhood that has lasted and thrived for more than a century.
Griffin said the association and residents in favor of Sunset incorporating as its own city are working from the standpoint of a recent study by its consultant Willdan Financial Services, that said Sunset Beach has a feasible amount of financial resources—home and sales taxes—to support itself as its own city.
Sunset Beach, along with other unincorporated areas and neighborhoods like Rossmoor, have been feeling pressure over the past few years by the County of Orange to accept annexation by neighboring cities.
Both communities have been staunch in their desire to remain independent. Rossmoor residents voted about 75 percent against incorporating. However, that is because they contain much more land area than Sunset Beach and can therefore forestall the annexation process longer.
For Sunset Beach, the situation is more about employing survival tactics.
Sunset Beach had expressed a desire to be annexed by Seal Beach over any forced annexation by Huntington Beach. Griffin said most Sunset residents thought their voting voices would be drowned out by the overwhelming population of Huntington Beach, with more than 200,000 residents.
Sunset Beach’s population is about 1,300, with fewer of that number as registered voters.
Griffin said that as Sunset Beach attempts to become its own city, he and other community association members have asked most of the Huntington Beach’s seven city council members to hold off on annexation until Sunset Beach goes through the incorporating process through LAFCO.
There is still a long row for Sunset to hoe before it can become is own city.
First Sunset Beach’s plan to incorporate must pass muster at LAFCO. That alone, Griffin said, is a major challenge.
“We could get approval from the LAFCO staff, but then it is up to the LAFCO board to approve Sunset becoming a city,” he said.
Then the community’s registered voting residents must approve the move toward cityhood in the following election.
In the meantime, Griffin said, the Huntington Beach city staff has made overtures that it would like to begin the process to annex Sunset Beach. However, he said the plans have yet to be approved by the Huntington Beach City Council. He said from what he has heard, most Huntington Beach residents are not as eager to annex Sunset Beach.
“When I talk to the people in Huntington Beach, I don’t see any push from them to annex us,” Griffin said. “I think if Sunset Beach keeps its independence it’s OK with them.”
