Rowland Heights and cityhood
Bethania Palma reports that a group of strong-willed residents are pushing for cityhood in Rowland Heights, which has not yet seen an election to incorporate.
My gut tells me that they won't be able to get the support they are looking for. After all, next-door neighboor Hacienda Heights tried and failed in 2003 to get incorporated.
Rowland Heights is a community of nearly 48,000. The Rowland Heights Coomunity Coordinating Council - the closest they have to a City Council meeting - meets once a month, and usually attracts between 50 and 75 people. They are hoping that if they can incorporate, Rowland Heights could get a handle on development in its own city as well as have a stronger voice in developments in neighboring cities.
But it seems they will have a hard time convincing people that this won't hit the pockets.
An underlying theme -- whether it's right or wrong, I can't say -- in many communities is change is bad, and I doubt that the community activists will be successful in getting support for their cause, even if the ends would be better.
I think you are comparing apples and oranges here.
There is a prominent issue driving the RH effort. Hacienda Heights, during their previous three incorporation efforts in 1982, 1992 and 2003 had no single galvanizing reason to drive their work. The arguments for cityhood in HH seemed to be limited to "everyone else is a city, we should be too," which isn't much to go on for those wondering why change should be made.
On the other hand, the Rowland Heights folks can point to Diamond Bar's Manifest Destiny effort on behalf of the AERA project as a compelling reason for cityhood.