Sunset Beach group fights annexation to Huntington Beach

The agency in charge of deciding whether parts of Orange County should be annexed into nearby cities may reconsider Sunset Beach’s annexation tomorrow. The reconsideration comes after a group from Sunset Beach sued to try to stop the annexation into neighboring Huntington Beach.

The lunchtime crowd comes and goes at the Harbor House Café, a beachy, movie poster-filled diner in Sunset Beach.

This is the sort of neighborhood feel that Jack Markovitz loves about Sunset Beach, a strip of unincorporated Orange County that runs about a mile down Pacific Coast Highway and stretches three blocks wide.

Markovitz has lived here 23 years. And he is riled up about Huntington Beach’s plan to annex his little community without giving Sunset Beach a say.

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"Many of us believe that this is a cram-down, it’s a hostile takeover of our community and that our rights as citizens of the state of California and of the United States have been violated," Markovitz says.

So he has helped form a group, the Citizens Association of Sunset Beach, that is suing to stop the annexation.

Markovitz says the process, known as “island annexation,” applies to areas that are less than 150 acres. Sunset Beach fits that bill. “Island annexation” can happen without a community vote.

But Markovitz says it only applies in cases where no city-specific taxes are applied. He says Huntington Beach wants to assess its 5 percent utility users tax on Sunset Beach. He says Huntington Beach wasn’t up front about that.

"It’s not about the paying taxes. It’s about the fact we were told, in order to manipulate the use of the law and use the small island annexation, that we wouldn't be taxed [the] Huntington Beach utility users tax and, of course, the CalPers pension fund assessment," Markovitz says. "But now we’re being told, 'Well, since this is already a done deal and we found out that we have to charge you the taxes, we’re not going to go back and do it the correct way and let you vote. We’re still just going to cram it down your throat.'"

Markovitz says he’s worried that being part of Huntington Beach will change sleepy Sunset Beach. But Mike VanVoorhis, who’s the president of the Sunset Beach Community Association, says the “Mayberry” feel won't ever go away.

"It doesn’t matter if we’re part of the county or part of Huntington Beach," VanVoorhis says. "Huntington Beach still says we can continue to be called Sunset Beach. Nothing’s really going to change. And I think that our community will go on very much the same way it has been going on for the last 106 years."

VanVoorhis says Sunset Beach would have preferred to remain an unincorporated island. But once the Local Agency Formation Commission, the agency that governs annexations, got the Huntington Beach ball rolling, VanVoorhis and others figured they’d cut the best deal they could.

"This is a case that everybody who has a strong opinion has a strong opinion because they love Sunset Beach and they’re going at it from a different direction," VanVoorhis says. "But I respect that so many of my friends and neighbors have a different opinion than I do, but you have to be true to what you feel and I still think that being part of Huntington Beach, given the few options that we have, is the best direction to go."

The direction of the county, though, is clear. It’s pushing to get rid of unincorporated areas. Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach says that started shortly after the county declared bankruptcy in 1994.

"In Sunset Beach, they fiercely want to be independent. They like the fact that we are our own little island and we like working with the county and we like, you know, being part of Orange County, but then they’ll complain, 'Well, you know, we were flooded' or 'the grass died' or 'something is happening' or 'there’s not enough sand here or there on this beach,'" Moorlach says. "So it makes a supervisor’s office like the mayor of this little area, which is one, very time consuming, and two, it’s distant."

Moorlach says local control is better. But since the Local Agency Formation Commission has already ruled that Sunset Beach isn't big enough to support cityhood, all that's left is annexation by Huntington Beach. The commission has already said that's good to go.

Unless it reverses itself at its next meeting, the commission's decision will go before a judge next week who could decide to halt the whole process until the lawsuit runs its course.