Annexation is an incredibly easy concept to understand. In the case of Temecula's original application to the Local Agency Formation Commission, the city wanted to rightfully annex land between Temecula's current southwest border and the County of San Diego boundary. The city is the local agency best positioned to govern that land as opposed to the distant county seat of government in Riverside.
It was just over a year ago that the formation commission rejected Temecula's annexation request in favor of a proposed quarry in the Riverside County "approval process," I recall one of the agency's members stating.
Let's be clear that Temecula's annexation attempt was purely in keeping with the city's original 1993 General Plan to preserve open space and protect a rare, unspoiled ecological treasure of Southern California.
Everybody else ---- Granite Construction, the press and the county agency turned the June 2009 annexation hearing into a mandate on Liberty Quarry ---- a proposed project, or land use.
The one thing the formation commission is prohibited from doing is making land-use decisions, but that is entirely the "reason" used to deny the annexation request. This is the point where Temecula officials should have started knocking over furniture in wild and open protest to an egregiously erroneous decision by LAFCO's members.
Instead, city leaders embraced flawed logic in a redacted annexation request removing the proposed quarry site, reapplied to the commission, only to be denied again. Later this month, the agency is supposed to re-reconsider the same annexation request sans the quarry. Should the commission grant annexation this time around, the city of Temecula still gives up local control in the "approval process" of Liberty Quarry.
Without a fight or even the filing of an official protest of the original LAFCO decision, the city put the fate of Liberty Quarry and the trust of the local public into the hands of county government.
In acknowledging the proposed Liberty Quarry as a condition in the reapplication for annexation, Temecula telegraphs tacit approval and even need for the quarry. City Council incumbents Jeff Comerchero and Maryann Edwards pleaded the economic need for development at a Rancho California Water District hearing considering a moratorium on meters for new construction.
City leaders once sued the county over abusive development and won. Now, our mature politicians have adopted compromise as policy and the Temecula City Council is sadly no longer willing to rock the county boat.
The youthful blood of unseasoned City Council members had the gumption to fight bad decisions.
Why did city leaders give up the prize and embrace this embarrassingly flawed annexation?
The new city motto should be "Old Traditions, New Compromises."
PAUL JACOBS writes from Temecula. Contact him at TemeculaPaul@aol.com.
