Abstract
Boundary changes for cities and most special districts are overseen by fifty-eight independent Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs). LAFCOs make their decisions based upon the broad statewide goals established by the Legislature, locally developed policies and procedures, local circumstances, constitutional rights, and state laws. They have a tremendous amount of discretion when it comes to approving boundary change applications. There is no higher authority other than the courts to challenge their decisions, and the courts are statutorily limited to a very narrow scope of review. This thesis focuses on city annexations because of their prevalence relative to other types of boundary changes. This research has three objectives. Given the wide parameters of operation of LAFCOs, the primary objective is to expand our understanding of what and when political forces impact the outcome of a city annexation proposal. The secondary goal is to provide LAFCOs with an understanding of the issues, processes, and trends among their counterparts in the state . Lastly, I hope to provide activists with information that would enable more effective participation in the process . The analysis is based upon responses provided by LAFCO executive officers to a twenty-three question survey. Through qualitative analysis of the responses, I found that political influences play minor and perhaps insignificant roles in the majority of city annexation decisions. Though the study does not support the hypothesis that politics significantly influences the outcome of annexation applications, it provides practitioners with valuable information about the problems and constraints currently faced by LAFCOs when making decisions about city annexations. In addition, activists promoting or opposing an annexations will find the survey responses helpful. The final questions of the survey provide a checklist of items that contribute to the success or failure of an annexation attempt that activists can use to help themselves anticipate problems and improve their ability to affect the process.