Last night after a ~3.5 hour meeting discussing many many details, the El Dorado Hills Community Services District (EDHCSD) voted unanimously to move ahead with the LAFCO process to complete an environmental review and the Comprehensive Fiscal Analysis (CFA). California (un)Incorporated was among those testifying in favor. Here's our letter:

Environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is required by the state despite the irrelevance of CEQA to the act of creating a new city. In working with El Dorado LAFCO, the EDHCSD has acquired "Lead Agency" status under CEQA, meaning EDHCSD is the agency with the "greatest general discretion" to make CEQA decisions. As the Lead Agency, the EDHCSD gets to call the shots - about which level of environmental analysis should apply, in responding to comments, and so forth - leading up to final certification of the environmental document. A group of local citizens has offered to help fund the analysis, which could cost anywhere from $25K to $300K. California (un)Incorporated believes those expenses are not valid, but unless the the law is changed along the lines of our recommendation, EDHCSD is stuck with things as they are.

The CFA is the core document that will provide data about whether El Dorado Hills can be financially viable as a new independent city. A preliminary analysis a few years ago showed there would be something like a $4M annual surplus for the new city. Expectations are that the amount of benefit to the communty will have gone up by now, given inflation and the rapid pace of growth in El Dorado Hills. Still, a more recent analysis will be very helpful for the cityhood determination. El Dorado County LAFCO will be preparing the CFA.

In other counties, the local LAFCOs have sometimes played games with the CFA by inflating the costs and low-balling the revenues. Hopefully that problem will not be the case for El Dorado LAFCO. Within its county, El Dorado Hills is an enormous, heavily-developed, urbanized community. It is perhaps 4-5 times the size of the City of Placerville (the county seat) and about twice the size of the county's other city, South Lake Tahoe. It's fairly obvious El Dorado Hills can take care of itself. We congratulate the EDHCSD for stepping up and undertaking the data collection effort necessary for the community to gain local control. It's possible the issue will be presented on the local ballot in November 2026.