WILDOMAR - A Feb. 5 vote will determine whether Wildomar can become a city, Riverside County's governing board decided Tuesday.

The board's 5-0 vote was largely a formality because a regional agency signed off on the matter last month, and the February date, when Californians will help the Democratic and Republican political parties choose their presidential nominees, had been seen as the most likely date to hold the election.

The vote followed about one minute of discussion from supervisors and no comments from county residents in attendance at the board meeting in downtown Riverside.

Residents of the 22-square-mile community sandwiched between Murrieta and Lake Elsinore will decide the issue by a simple majority. Cityhood proponents acknowledge that getting their message out to voters may be a hard task, though their 16-year movement faces virtually no organized opposition in its campaign to create a city with its own government.

If the voters approve cityhood, they will also choose five people to sit on Wildomar's first city council. It would become a city on July 1.