SB's annexation of 6 areas overturned

SAN BERNARDINO - The controversial annexation of six county islands into the city has been canceled following the result of a lawsuit by a woman who claimed she was denied her right to vote on the issue.

Susan Hulse, the plaintiff in the case, said Wednesday that she was "jazzed" to once again live under county government jurisdiction.

"Don't ever give up," she said. "If you know what's right, stand up for what's right."

A stipulated judgment ended Hulse's case on Aug. 13. The lawsuit's conclusion means that Hulse's neighborhood and five other unincorporated pockets will return to county control, but the legal questions raised by Hulse's lawsuit went unanswered.

"A judge never weighed in on it," Hulse said.

"The legal issue is still pretty much up in the air."

The Local Agency Formation Commission for the county, also known as Lafco, took action in November to incorporate the six areas into San Bernardino.

Lafco's authority includes powers to decide which neighborhoods are parts of which cities, and a state law at the crux of Hulse's lawsuit allows Lafco to let cities annex unincorporated areas without a public vote under certain conditions.

The law is intended to make local governance more rational by smoothing out the often jagged boundaries between cities and unincorporated areas.

One of the conditions laid out in that law is a requirement that any county pockets annexed without a vote have 150 acres or less in size. Hulse contended that Lafco violated this principle when her neighborhood was annexed.

Hulse lives in a 130-acre area contiguous with a 61-acre zone that San Bernardino also briefly annexed this year. Hulse contended that Lafco should have considered the neighborhoods as one area, which would have required a vote.

Despite the end to the case, Lafco's executive director, Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, said she still believes California law allows the annexations to take place as the agency did it.

Lafco has a workshop scheduled for November to discuss annexation policies, she said.

San Bernardino officials only asked Lafco to annex the contested islands because Lafco's board of directors demanded it.

San Bernardino leaders really wanted the Arrowhead Springs Area, more than 1,500 acres of foothill land around the historic Arrowhead Springs Hotel.

City leaders view the hillside land as a potential site for upscale neighborhoods and commercial development.

San Bernardino City Attorney James F. Penman said he refused to sign City Council resolutions in favor of the annexations because he thought Lafco's plan was illegal.

The city is now on the hook for $40,000 to $60,000 in legal fees, he said.

"If the advice of the City Attorney's Office was followed, we would not have to pay that," he said.

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