Council rejects proposal to consider land east of Menifee

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Menifee City Council members have rejected a proposal from city staff that would’ve hired a consulting firm to study the feasibility of annexing unincorporated land east of the city limits.

The proposal came out of a previous discussion about exploring Menifee’s “sphere of influence” (SOI) toward the east. The area under discussion is approximately 1,929 acres that are within the County of Riverside’s Sun City/Menifee Valley Area Plan. The area extends from Briggs Road east to Leon Road, and from Old Newport Road south to Scott Road.

That area includes approximately 75 large parcels plus Liberty High School and a housing development just west of the school.

The state organizing entity CALAFCO defines sphere of influence as “a planning boundary outside of an agency’s legal boundary (such as the city limit line) that designates the agency’s probable future boundary and service area. Factors considered in a sphere of influence review focus on the current and future land use, the current and future need and capacity for service, and any relevant communities of interest.”

During an October 2022 City Council meeting, then-Mayor Bill Zimmerman described a bid for amending Menifee’s sphere of influence as “having a seat at the table” in land use decisions for an area that is now unincorporated Winchester.

“We desire the opportunity to speak about development projects and how to deal with traffic that affects us,” Zimmerman said at the time. “This was never put to us as an opportunity to expand city limits.”

At that time, the Council voted 3-2 to pursue a study of the SOI amendment. But the new council, with Ricky Estrada as mayor and with Dan Temple and Ben Diederich assuming Council seats, chose after some discussion was to take the agenda item off calendar.

“The SOI would give us a little more say on the path to possible annexation, but we would have to amend the General Plan,” staff member Doug Darnell to council members.

“What benefit would there be to the city?” council member Dean Deines asked.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Assistant City Manager Bryan Jones responded. “The question would be whether Menifee could provide better services to that area.”

Staff’s proposal would’ve authorized the expense of approximately $85,000 to MNS Consulting Group for a financial analysis of such an SOI amendment. Considering that there is no guarantee LAFCO would approve the amendment, council members were hesitant to approve such an expense.

“What would we get for such a study?” Deines asked. “We could end up providing a lot of services without getting any revenue.”

Estrada agreed.

“I want to be a good neighbor,” Estrada said, “but this is a gamble. Our residents want us to focus on the infrastructure we have here.”

Although the County’s Menifee/Sun City Valley Area Plan still exists, the parcel in question was not included when the boundaries of the City of Menifee were drawn in 2008. At the 2022 meeting and at this meeting, residents of Winchester argued that they should have the right to continue working on their efforts to incorporate as a city and include that area.

In 2022, LAFCO ruled that Menifee “should re-evaluate its SOI expansion plans to the east of State Route 79 after Riverside County takes final action on its Winchester plan.” Winchester residents took that to mean that LAFCO was opposed to the idea of Menifee expansion while the Winchester issue is still unresolved.

“Precedent was set in 2022,” Winchester Angela Little said at last week’s meeting. “LAFCO said no to Menifee because it was contrary to the existing identifiable community. The Winchester Community Plan states that we should remain intact as one community.”

A motion to take the issue off the council calendar was unanimous.