Poor Rossmoor. The Rossmoor Community Services District has an officious Board of Directors that does not know what their jurisdictional powers are.
That became evident when Ron Casey attended the I-405 Expansion Project meeting hosted by Orange County Transportaion Authority and was told correctly by John Moorlach that he did not have the right to vote.
The RCSD board is limited to those powers that were given to them in 1987 upon its formation and were for the following purposes:
1. Public recreation services and facilities.
2. Street lighting.
3. Installation and maintenance of median landscaping on Rossmoor Way.
4. Aesthetic trimming of parkway trees.
5. Street sweeping.
The above powers were expanded by a vote of the people in the district on June 6, 1988, to include full maintenance of parkway trees.
When Mr. Casey went to that meeting and was paid by the RCSD for attending he was acting outside of his duties as director.
Nowhere can be seen the power to spend $27,000 to put up signage in Rossmoor Village (which already has three huge Rossmoor Village signs paid for by the owners of the property or the businesses there.)
Ronald Reagan said, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.”
If that isn’t true of our RCSD, I don’t know what is. Now they are applying to LAFCO for latent police powers.
The Attorney General Opinion informed us that the RSCD has no intention of just contracting with the County or Los Alamitos for law enforcement service similar to what we now have.
Page 4 of the A.G. opinion states: “We are informed, however, that the District desires to provide for its territory and residents a different and greater level of law enforcement and police protection services than are provided by the sheriff, more akin to those provided by municipal police departments. Such services would include, for example, parking enforcement and a constant presence of patrol officers.”
Our Board never informed the public of those intentions.
Now that is scary stuff. At the last board meeting that I attended, director Kahlert trying to show his neo-Gestapo tendencies, said: “I’d like to explore a way for us to have a sergeant -at-arms at these meeting. I would feel safer if we would have some kind of presence here.”
Henry Taboada, the manager, said that one advantage of having your own police department is that you could have the chief of police at each meeting.
Should you bring your guns? Better yet. Tell LAFCO to vote “No” on latent powers for Rossmoor.
Joyce Bloom is a longtime resident of Rossmoor and a former director on the Rossmoor Community Services District board.
