La Jollan's score victory in the plan to separate San Diego – NBC 7 San Diego

Members of the Association of the City of La Jolla (ACLJ) breathe out a little after they have received more than the 6,750 signatures required to start the process of combating their own city.

“We want to make this a jewel that it was many years ago. It has lost a large part of its shine and we only want to repair it for everyone,” said Dian Kane, Vice President of ACLJ.

Despite the victory, the process is far from over, and the mayor of San Diego, Todd Gloria, has sworn to examine legal steps against the local agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). It is the district office that monitors the creation of new cities.

LAFCO returned the registrar to the voter's decision that some of the Petitions of ACLJ were invalid. Gloria calls this decision “outrageous”.

In an explanation, Gloria said: “The city formally refused against many interpretations of the LAFCO employee, including the viewers of names that were not registered voter data, false addresses and postcodes, incomplete addresses and illegible submissions that were already rejected by the registrar.

“The local commission for the formation of the agency follows another part of the code than state law,” said Ed Witt, ACLJ treasurer. “I respect the mayor. I know that Todd is a great guy, but he is wrong.”

One of La Jolla's effort from parishioners of becoming their own city had its final petition drives. Kelvin Henry from NBC 7 reports.

La Jolla is talking about the split off for years, but it has never come that far.

Kane shared a laundry list of things that she says that La Jollans can do it better, such as “new development by maintaining our inheritance, the protection of the natural habitat” and infrastructure problems.

They say that the city of San Diego would no longer have to pay and enable the mayor to focus on other communities like South San Diego, which were flooded last year.

“We think we can take this burden away from the city for our infrastructure and save them money and save you the liability and make La Jolla and the city of San Diego better for everyone,” said Witt.

According to the provisional budget analysis of the ACLJ, La Jolla generates sales of almost 84 million US dollars for the city of San Diego. According to Lafco, a separation for San Diego must be newly used, which means that “the city of San Diego does not lose a cent,” said Witt.

He and the ACLJ argue that the city could possibly make money by completing emergency services.

LAFCO will now start creating a final certified financial analysis.

Ultimately, the decision to share is coordinated by all San Diegans.

The association for the city of La Jolla said that more than 7,000 signatures were collected, reports Dana Williams from NBC 7.