‘We need money’: La Jolla cityhood advocates look to raise funds for next steps

Some $1 million is still needed for the ongoing effort to have La Jolla become its own city — with the possibility of more being needed in coming years. 

That was the message from the Association for the City of La Jolla at a public meeting Sept. 2 as members provided updates on their progress.  

“We need money,” said the group’s new president, Diane Kane. “Money, money, money.” 

ACLJ is working with the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, which helps guide communities seeking to incorporate, in its effort to detach from the city of San Diego. 

Thus far, much of the work has been grassroots and volunteer-driven, but the next steps in the process require paying for professional work. 

To move the process forward, LAFCO will need to hire a consultant, whose time ACLJ will pay for. Kane said paying for consulting services is “the biggest chunk” of ACLJ’s budget. 

ACLJ this year submitted a preliminary fiscal analysis prepared for it by Richard Berkson of urban economics company Berkson Associates, but Kane said that report was a draft “that indicated whether cityhood was feasible.”

A final report produced by a consultant for LAFCO will be more detailed. 

An estimated $150,000-$200,000 will go to the financial consultant, and various other consultants may be brought on by the end of the year.  

ACLJ board member Sharon Wampler said the organization has a $1 million budget for the next 12-18 months, but more will be needed down the line. Thus far, about $168,000 in pledges have been received.  

If LAFCO approves the La Jolla cityhood proposal, the plan would go to public voting in which a majority both of La Jollans and the rest of San Diego would need to support it. The association hopes to have the initiative on the ballot in 2028.

Getting there “is going to require a much bigger lift,” Kane said, including around $820,000 “to get through the LAFCO phase to see whether we can make it to an election.” 

Down the line, an additional $6 million to $8 million might be needed for the election campaign, said board member Mary Coakley Munk. 

Acknowledging that people “shudder” when they hear that number, she said the total likely will “end up being less than what we [already] end up paying for [community enhancement] projects that we do ourselves, and we [would] have control over how the money is spent and where it goes.”

Additional expenses include operating the association’s website and social media accounts and paying signature gatherers and LAFCO fees, including the fees associated with preparing the final fiscal analysis.  

New board makeup

To “prepare for the next phase,” the ACLJ board has been reconfigured with new officers and members, Kane said.

“We started out as a board of [seven] scrappy volunteers … and now we need more people and … resources,” she said. 

Among the changes, Kane was selected as president and Ed Witt as vice president. New board members were and will continue to be brought on as former members including ex-president Trace Wilson, Janie Emerson and Brenda Fake depart. Further details were not immediately available.

“We needed to expand the board,” Kane said. “We needed different expertise from when we started because the mission has gotten bigger. … So we had to look to move us to the next phase and succeed.” 

The board also revised its bylaws and created committees for which it is seeking volunteers. 

History and legal issues

ACLJ set out last year on a six-month effort to gather signatures from 25% of La Jolla’s registered voters, or 6,536, in support of the separation initiative. The petition drive was a required step to keep the cityhood application process going.

In mid-December, the group submitted nearly 8,000 signatures for review and validation by the San Diego County registrar of voters office and LAFCO. 

However, the registrar of voters office said in March that the group fell 1,027 short of the number required because of signatures determined to be invalid or in need of information such as a date or an address.

LAFCO gave ACLJ from March 17 to April 1 to correct the invalid signatures, collect new ones or both to fill the gap. The group came up with 1,506.

On April 29, the association received a letter saying it had collected a total of 6,772 valid signatures, putting it over the threshold.

Soon after, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria issued a formal objection that argued LAFCO overstepped in the process of verifying the signatures, and he disputed many of the signatures that ultimately were deemed valid.

The city’s objection said “the [registrar of voters] reviewed both the petition and supplemental petition [the second round of signature-gathering] and found them insufficient, with a shortfall of 218 valid signatures.”

The city stated that ACLJ “requested to review the rejected signatures and contest those they believe the [registrar of voters] improperly rejected.”

LAFCO conducted a secondary review of the contested signatures on the supplemental petition and ultimately “overruled the [registrar’s] rejection on 239 signatures,” the city said.

Of the 239 “resurrected” signatures, the city said it was “allowed to review 212.” The city contended that of those, only 33 were valid, and it objected to the remaining 179.

The city also said it “objects to LAFCO’s secondary review of the signatures [ACLJ] contested” and believes the registrar of voters should be the authority on whether signatures are valid.

On May 2, LAFCO issued a formal response to San Diego’s objection, calling many of the city’s claims “inaccurate” and saying it was moving forward with the cityhood application process.

Ten days later, the San Diego City Council decided on a 6-0 vote during a closed session to authorize legal action over LAFCO’s handling of the petition signatures.

On June 19, the city filed a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking to stop LAFCO and its executive officer, Keene Simonds, from proceeding with the cityhood process, which includes launching an administrative review of the application filed in late January by ACLJ.  

The lawsuit was amended in July to state that the cityhood review process would impose “substantial irreparable harm” on San Diego due to the costs associated with staff time required for the next steps and that dedicating staff members’ time to that process would take away from “performing their core functions.”

The city sought “preliminary and permanent injunctions ordering LAFCO and [Simonds] … to rescind the certificate of sufficiency” and issue a certificate of insufficiency indicating that the petition “was not signed by the requisite number of signers and enjoining LAFCO from continuing the proceedings.”  

Should a certificate of insufficiency be issued, ACLJ would have to restart the petition process. 

On Aug. 25, ACLJ filed a court motion arguing that the city’s lawsuit is a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP — what the association calls a “meritless attempt to obstruct democratic participation and silence a public interest effort through costly litigation.”

The anti-SLAPP motion, if granted, could result in dismissal of the city lawsuit.