The Association for the City of La Jolla turned in 8,000 signatures to the San Diego Local Area Formation Commission, or LAFCO, Wednesday, officially starting the process that could lead to La Jolla seceding from the city of San Diego.
What happens now:I talked to Priscilla Mumpower, the assistant executive officer of San Diego LAFCO. She said they need 6,800 valid signatures from La Jolla voters so LAFCO contracts with the County Registrar of Voters to verify that enough of the signatures belong to legitimate La Jolla voters.
This can be tricky: Library and parks supporters and the San Diego Municipal Employees Association are still in court challenging the Registrar of Voters after it determined that they had not gathered sufficient signatures to put a parcel tax on the ballot. Signatures can be thrown out for pretty minor discrepancies for things like street names in addresses not matching perfectly.
If they have insufficient signatures: They can ask for 15 more days to make up the difference.
If they have sufficient signatures: Then a long process starts. LAFCO will hire a consultant, for whom the La Jollans will have to pay. The consultant will do a fiscal analysis of all the potential revenue the La Jollans will be able to come up with, the cost of the services they will have to deliver and how much they’ll owe the city of San Diego from the sort of alimony they’d have to pay after the divorce.
The city and the La Jollans would begin a long negotiation about that alimony and about various services the city would or would not provide La Jolla.
Then, finally, San Diego LAFCO board would vote on approving the deal they came up with.
If approved: La Jolla would vote.
If La Jolla voted yes: Then the city of San Diego (including La Jolla) would vote.
There’s very little chance this all could get on the 2026 ballot.
