Hacienda Heights : Cityhood Effort Fails

The latest drive to turn the unincorporated community of Hacienda Heights into a city has died for lack of interest, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) said. One of LAFCO’s functions is to validate cityhood petitions and organize incorporation elections.

The cityhood committee informed LAFCO on Tuesday that it had obtained only 750 of the 6,100 signatures needed by Feb. 12 to qualify the incorporation petition for a special election, the spokeswoman said.

Bob Preston, incorporation committee chairman, said the cityhood drive faltered because, of the 126 people who initially volunteered to collect signatures in August, only 32 were at work in recent weeks. Preston said that because the community of 65,000 residents has a sufficiently large tax base to run a city government, he predicted that another incorporation drive will be made soon. This the second time in two years Hacienda Heights residents have attempted and failed to qualify an incorporation election.