La Jolla residents make push to advance secession from San Diego

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The effort to make La Jolla its own city separate from San Diego is making a final push ahead of the holidays to move long-discussed proposal forward.

The Association for the City of La Jolla (ACLJ) has volunteers out in the community hoping to collect enough signatures to place secession from the city of San Diego on the ballot some time in the near future.

The grassroots endeavor to split La Jolla from San Diego has been the works for years, with the association finally beginning the signature-gathering process about six months ago in order to get the divorce before voters.

The group now has a Dec. 1 deadline to get 25% of all registered voters in La Jolla — about 6,500 people — to sign their petition. Trace Wilson, ACLJ president, believes they have already met this threshold, but he said they still have volunteers out collecting more in the event some cannot be counted.

If they meet the deadline, the planning agency who oversees the incorporation of cities, the Local Agency Formation Commission, will take up the matter, notably running a financial analysis on what it could mean for the city of San Diego, community of La Jolla and county at large.

“I always call it a win, win win. It’s important we are benefiting the region of San Diego, the city of San Diego and the community of La Jolla,” Wilson said. He said one of the main reasons for the push is he believes La Jolla would be better at taking care of its needs.

Among the benefits Wilson argues separation would come with include: relieving San Diego of all costs and liability for La Jolla, providing an income stream to San Diego through leased services for La Jolla, reliving San Diego of expenses tied to coastline upkeep, giving La Jolla flexibility to fix roads and focus on other projects of importance to residents.

Wilson also says a withdrawal could create “broad economic uplift” and give La Jollans a louder voice in decisions made up in Sacramento.

Diane Kane, the former Mayor for the City of La Habra Heights and vice president of ACLJ, said she has encountered residents with varying thoughts on the proposal.

“You have people who have been here a very long time, who have been through this exercise, and they’re rather skeptical,” Kane said. “We have other people who are really excited and enthusiastic.”

“Growing up here and knowing the history of this city [San Diego] I am so concerned that we are losing most of our infrastructure, because the city doesn’t have the money,” said Melinda Mayweather, a volunteer with ACLJ and one supporter of La Jolla’s secession.

On the flip side, those who have voiced concern about La Jolla’s separation argue cutting off taxes from San Diego’s revenue could be a significant blow to this financial health, as the area has some of the most expensive properties in the entire region and is an epicenter of its tourism.

Kane pushes back on this, calling impressions the La Jolla is a “giant financial machine” nothing more than misconceptions. Their draft financial analysis, she says, shows the community only accounts for about 6% of the city’s property taxes.

“Out of the $700 plus million dollars in property taxes that are collected citywide, La Jolla only contributes $44 million,” she said.

If the separation efforts go through, it will be sent to a double vote: A majority of voters in the city of San Diego will need to approve it, as well as a majority of the some 39,000 residents in what would be the newly-formed city of La Jolla.

There is no official deadline for this to be brought to a vote, but Wilson hopes to have the matter on the ballot in either 2026 or 2028.