Orange County Grand Jury • 2014-2015

Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission (lafco):*

Published: June 26, 2015 31 pages Consolidated Report

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Findings 7 findings

OC LAFCO's has failed to effectively fulfill its legislative mandate to proactively pursue efficiency of local governmental organizations by restructuring them and reshaping their boundaries in a logical, orderly, and timely manner.

OC LAFCO has failed to use its latent power to initiate, let alone obtain, a single consolidation since the Legislature delegated this authority to it 22 years ago.

OC LAFCO discontinued its Unincorporated Islands Program, Unincorporated Islands Incentive Program, and Stakeholder Plan, all of which enabled it to streamline and fast-track the annexation process.

The County of Orange has withdrawn assistance to OC LAFCO in its effort to annex unincorporated islands by terminating its robust Unincorporated Islands Revitalization and Annexation Strategy and by withdrawing the assigned analyst who previously was on loan to OC LAFCO to provide fiscal analysis and data in support of island annexations.

The County of Orange has failed to facilitate and assist OC LAFCO in its annexation efforts by not offering greater incentives to both the annexing cities and the islands to be annexed, such as infrastructure improvements, property-tax exchange, and cost-sharing agreements, through memoranda of understanding and pre-annexation agreements.

By requiring staff to check with the Orange County supervisor in whose district an island lies before commencing an annexation proposal OC LAFCO is risking a loss of independence and objectivity. .

OC LAFCO discontinued the Islands Community Task Force, which has impacted its annexation efforts. RECOMMENDATIONS In accordance with California Penal Code sections 933 and 933.05, the 2014-2015 Grand Jury requires responses from each agency affected by the recommendations presented in this section. The responses are to be submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court. Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO): It's Time to Redraw the Line Based on its investigation titled "Orange County Local Agency Formation" Commission (LAFCO): It's Time to Redraw the Line," the 2014-2015 Orange County Grand Jury makes the following six recommendations: Orange County LAFCO should proceed to identify and prioritize special district

Recommendations 6

R1

consolidations and mergers, commence the necessary studies, and then initiate the appropriate petitions or proposals. (F.1., F.2.)
R2

Orange County LAFCO should revive and reinstate its Unincorporated Islands Program and Community Islands Task Force, and it should expand its Unincorporated Islands Incentive Program and Stakeholder Plan to streamline and fast-track the annexation effort. (F.3.)
R3

The Orange County Board of Supervisors should revive and reinstate its Community Revitalization and Annexation Strategy and dedicate an analyst from the County Finance Office, whose sole duties would be to assist Orange County LAFCO with its efforts to promote annexation of the remaining unincorporated islands. (F.4.)
R4

The Orange County Board of Supervisors should assist OC LAFCO in facilitating and expediting the annexation effort by offering greater incentives to both the annexing cities and the islands to be annexed, such as infrastructure improvements, fiscal subsidies, MOUs, and cost-sharing agreements. In addition, the County should consider imposing a special assessment on the island property to help defray the County's costs of providing municipal services to those islands. (F.5.)
R5

Orange County LAFCO's practice of deferring to the Orange County Supervisor in whose district an island lies should be changed to better allow OC LAFCO to fulfill its role independently and objectively. (F.6.)
R6

Orange County LAFCO should revive and reconstitute the Unincorporated Islands Community Task Force and set specific goals to expedite annexations of all remaining small islands by a certain date and annexations of all large islands by another date certain. (F.7.)

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.