Fifty years ago in Yorba Linda: state Supreme Court clears hurdle for public vote on cityhood

Fifty years ago this week a final hurdle to allowing Yorba Lindans to vote on incorporating as a city was overcome, when the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled a plebiscite on cityhood should proceed.

Opponents to incorporation had challenged a 1966 Court of Appeals decision overturning a 1964 Superior Court ruling that owners of oil and gas leases qualified as landowners when they protested an incorporation vote.

While the Supreme Court didn't rule on the legal right of the leaseholders to protest a vote, the court did say that many of the mineral rights owner protests were filed too late to count.

The assessed value of land and separately assessed mineral rights in Yorba Linda at the time totaled $4.1 million. Owners of $2.4 million worth of the land and rights, or 58 percent, signed protest letters opposing the cityhood vote.

The appeals court said none of the mineral rights valuations should be included when deciding the validity of protests, but the Supreme Court ignored that aspect of the case and ruled that some $800,000 of the protesting valuations were filed three weeks past deadline.

“This holding,” the court wrote in a decision released May 25, 1967, “renders it unnecessary to consider other attacks made by the plaintiffs,” who supported the incorporation vote. The trial court's decision was reversed, and the county Board of Supervisors ordered to schedule an election.

Many past supervisors opposed incorporation efforts because they saw their power waning as new cities were created, and significant funding for their campaigns came from large land-owners and leaseholders wary of increasing regulation from more municipal governments.

Now, supervisors support the county's 34 cities annexing unincorporated areas encircled by or adjacent to the cities. The county has encouraged Yorba Linda to annex the Country Club and Fairlynn islands over the years, but a majority of the some 1,500 registered voters in the two areas always have opposed joining the city when the issue has appeared on the ballot.

The then-supervisors didn't appeal the court's 1967 decision and in August held a public hearing to establish boundaries for the proposed city and set an election date for Oct. 24.

The legal firm Rutan & Tucker argued the case for the public vote, with Homer McCormick and James Erickson as lead attorneys. Erickson became Yorba Linda's first City Attorney, and Rutan & Tucker currently represents the city in legal matters.

Seventy-two percent of voters turned out to support cityhood with a 3-1 margin, 1,963 to 638. Twenty-seven candidates filed for the five City Council positions on the same ballot, including at least four who opposed incorporation.

The winners – attorney Roland Bigonger, pharmacy owner Burt Brooks, former postmaster Whit Cromwell, state safety engineer Bill Ross and sales manager Herb Warren – held the first council meeting Nov. 2, selecting Bigonger as first mayor.