With new faces amid other board changes, the Association for the City of La Jolla updates the community on the progress of its multiyear journey.
The Association for the City of La Jolla board has undergone some transition since its inception in 2022, its newly-elected President, Diane Kane, said at a Sept 2 public meeting online and at the La Jolla/Riford Library.
Amid legal motions and lawsuits, ACLJ is pushing forward, celebrating its efforts so far while asking the community to continue to support its quest to have La Jolla detach from the city of San Diego.
La Jolla is not its own city; it is a community within San Diego and beholden to San Diego’s laws and policies.
Though there have been previous efforts for La Jolla’s incorporation, ACLJ has gone further than any.
ACLJ believes a city of La Jolla would improve La Jollans’ quality of life by giving La Jolla a voice in Sacramento; allowing La Jolla to prioritize projects; and improving public safety, roads, cleanliness and infrastructure.
Additionally, an incorporated La Jolla would benefit all of San Diego by relieving the larger city of costs to maintain La Jolla; giving the city alimony payments; and adding to San Diego’s revenue through tourism and leased services.
To become its own city, La Jolla (via the ACLJ) is awaiting approval from the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), a county office that helps communities incorporate before moving to the next step, a city-wide, double election in which both La Jollans and San Diegans would have to vote to allow La Jolla’s detachment.
Who is ACLJ?
Kane replaced past president Trace Wilson, who left the board for family reasons, board members explained.
Kane now heads the board, bringing her expertise as a longtime La Jolla civic leader specializing in land use, transportation and environmental and preservation planning.
ACLJ Vice President Ed Witt is also heavily involved in local projects and leads the board of Enhance La Jolla.
La Jolla’s detachment from San Diego has been “batted about” for decades, Witt said. “This is our best and … last chance to do this. We are close.”
New ACLJ board member Ted Levis, with experience in the commercial real estate business, moved from the midwest 14 years ago and “couldn’t believe the city of San Diego [and] the way it operated,” he said, adding he is frustrated by “how diff
icult it was to get anything done, and nobody cared.”
San Diego is “the worst-run city that I do business in,” Levis said.
New ACLJ board member Jeff Scott, president of a La Jolla HOA, brings a financial management focus to ACLJ, Scott said.
“We all know the condition of streets. We all know the condition of our beaches,” he said. “We know we’ve got lots of work to do on infrastructure. That’s just a part of the [ACLJ] agenda, but it’s an important part.”
Board member Mary Munk, a longtime advocate for improvement of La Jolla’s parks and beaches, ocean conservation and more, is involved in so many privately-funded projects and volunteerism “because that’s the only way it’s going to be done,” she said.
Board member Sharon Wampler, a longtime La Jollan with biotech industry experience, champions not only the ACLJ mission but its members’ efforts, she said.
“We should cheer ourselves on,” Wampler said. “This is historic.”
ACLJ is working to further expand the board, Kane said, also hoping to add members to its committees, which include finance, fundraising, legal and marketing.
“The members of the board have worked very hard,” Witt said, “but we cannot do this alone.”
ACLJ’s timeline
The ACLJ push for La Jolla’s incorporation began in earnest in 2021, when Kane was part of “an incipient group of about six people who got together weekly to research the feasibility of becoming a city,” she said.
In August 2022, ACLJ became a state-recognized 501(c)(6) nonprofit and began speaking with LAFCO about the application process, which includes a Preliminary Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis; a proposed map of La Jolla (roughly from Pacific Beach north to Del Mar and the shoreline east to Interstate 5, excluding UC San Diego); and a petition of at least 25% of registered La Jolla voters showing support for the LAFCO inquiry into the initiative.
ACLJ fundraised for and commissioned urban economist Richard Berkson to draft the PCFA, “which just let us know whether this conversation had any possibility of succeeding or not,” Kane said.
Once the PCFA came back, ACLJ began signature gathering efforts for the petition.
“This was truly a community-driven campaign,” Kane said. “This would not have happened without all of you.”
Amid the signature drive, ACLJ held its first public meeting in September 2024, during which it revealed numbers from the PCFA showed La Jolla generates $83.8 million in revenue while costing the city $74.8 million in services.
That $9 million difference proves a city of La Jolla is viable, ACLJ believes, and may be part of the “alimony” payments an independent La Jolla makes for a set time to San Diego.
“Cityhood cannot go forward unless it is revenue neutral,” Kane said. “San Diego cannot lose money.”
Any payments to the city “likely will end up being less than we … spend paying for the projects that we do ourselves here,” Munk said, “and we’ll have control over how the money is spent.”
ACLJ formally filed its LAFCO application in January, after which LAFCO requested the San Diego Registrar of Voters verify the signatures on the ACLJ petition.
LAFCO also began planning for its own Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis, which would look at the information from the PCFA and include one-time startup costs; property costs; responsibility for unfunded pension liabilities; contracting of services; impacts on public utilities; revenue neutrality and impacts on the city of San Diego.
“If [La Jolla cityhood] is not a good idea and it doesn’t work, it goes nowhere,” Kane said.
In March, the ROV stated ACLJ was short of the required 25% (6,750) registered La Jolla voters, due to those signers filing out information incorrectly or incompletely.
LAFCO then reviewed the signatures, validating an additional 240 signatures according to its discretion, which allows for abbreviations of street names and other minor details the ROV rejects.
LAFCO certified the petition in April, stating ACLJ obtained 6,772 verified signatures, 22 above the needed number. The confirmation triggered San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria to call the LAFCO verification process “outrageous.”
After the San Diego City Council voted in May to enable the city to take legal action, the city filed suit against LAFCO in June, asking for a rescission of the petition certification.
Asked whether ACLJ believes City Council President Joe La Cava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla, is compromised by representing La Jolla but also voting to authorize legal action against ACLJ, Kane said she was “shocked when Mr LaCava voted … to proceed with a lawsuit, because … he had a clear conflict of interest.”
“The smart maneuver would have been to abstain,” she said, but added an ACLJ attorney told her there was no conflict of interest, as LaCava represents more than just La Jolla as District 1’s voice and also considers the best interests of the entire city as president.
“And clearly the city attorney didn’t think he had a conflict of interest,” Kane said, “or he would have been asked to step down.”
A July amendment to the suit added LAFCO’s analysis of ACLJ’s application “will impose substantial irreparable harm on the city,” with San Diego having to “incur considerable costs as city staff will be forced to expend substantial time and resources analyzing and collecting the necessary information and data.”
ACLJ fired back in August, filing an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) motion against the city, alleging the city’s lawsuit impedes the First Amendment rights of the ACLJ and the petition’s signers.
“We can’t let the city suppress the voters’ will to look into this project,” Levis said.
LAFCO has always maintained its commitment to following state law, its representatives have said. City representatives have declined to comment on pending litigation.
Next steps for ACLJ and LAFCO
The anti-SLAPP motion will be heard in April 2026, an attorney consultant for ACLJ said; the city’s lawsuit cannot be heard until after the outcome of that motion is determined.
In the meantime, LAFCO is preparing to hire an analyst to undertake the CFA. It will be some time before LAFCO has enough information to approve or deny La Jolla’s incorporation.
As two City Council members and representatives from across San Diego County sit on LAFCO, “the city of San Diego is at the table,” Wampler said. “It really is going to be a conversation with the entire county.”
ACLJ again asked for donations, as it needs about $820,000 “to get through the LAFCO phase to see whether we can make it to an election,” Kane said.
Running an election may cost between $4 million and $6 million, she added.
The largest chunk of donations raised will go to consultants, Kane said.
“We’re amateurs, we need professionals who know how to get us into a new structure of government and to get us through the election.”
