Report of 
 
 T he Municipa l Annexation 
 Commission 
 
 
 
 
 
 .. 
 
 To The 
 
 City Council 
 
 -of- 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Filed November 11, 1913 
 
 This Report approved by the City Council at its 
 meeting held November 13, 1913. 
 
The Municipal Annexation Commission was or¬ 
 ganized October 14, 1913, by authority of the City 
 Council of Los Angeles, upon recommendation of 
 Mayor H. H. Rose that definite action be taken rela¬ 
 tive to distribution of the Aqueduct water. 
 
 The Commission was organized with Mayor Rose 
 as chairman; Councilman M. F. Betkouski, vice- 
 chairman; George B. Harrison, secretary; Ralph 
 Criswell, George H. Dunlop, Miles Gregory, Irving 
 H. Heilman, Leslie R. Hewitt and Orra E. Monnette, 
 commissioners. 
 
 Daily sessions were held with conferences from 
 representatives of all the outside districts that asked 
 to be heard. 
 
 At an early date in the series of meetings the Com¬ 
 mission decided, as a fundamental policy, that an¬ 
 nexation to Los Angeles should be made a condition 
 precedent to distribution of the Aqueduct water 
 This report was unanimously adopted by the Muni¬ 
 cipal Annexation Commission and presented to the 
 City Council at its meeting held November 11, 1913, 
 and approved by the City Council November 13, 1913. 
 
 REPORT OF THE MUNICIPAL ANNEXATION 
 
 COMMISSION 
 
 To the Honorable Council of the City of Los 
 
 Angeles: 
 
 Your Municipal Annexation Commission, appointed 
 to consider the relation that should exist between 
 the sale of aqueduct water* and the annexation or 
 consolidation of outside territory to the City of Los 
 Angeles, herewith submits the following report: 
 
 A. We recommend that annexation or consolida¬ 
 tion shall be a condition precedent to the furnishing 
 of water to any territory outside the present city 
 boundaries. 
 
 B. We submit and recommend a general plan 
 under which annexation, in the case of unincorpor¬ 
 ated territory, or consolidation in the case of incor- 
 
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porated cities, shall take place. Certain of the details 
 of this plan can only be completely worked out in 
 connection with the different requirements of the 
 various sections that may seek annexation or con¬ 
 solidation, but the plan as a whole is quite definite, 
 and there need be no difficulty in arranging for the 
 details that will be appropriate for each case of 
 annexation or consolidation as such cases may arise. 
 
 A. Annexation or Consolidation a Condition Prece¬ 
 dent to the Sale of Water 
 
 We deem it appropriate that we should state some 
 of the reasons that have led us to recommend that 
 annexation or consolidation should be a condition 
 precedent to the furnishing of water to any territory 
 outside the present city boundaries. 
 
 (1) Annexation or consolidation, quicker than 
 any other method, will get the aqueduct water into 
 use, producing a revenue, and making possible the 
 turning of the wheels of the City’s electric power 
 plant. Without annexation, no outside territory can 
 secure a permanent title to the water. Lacking per¬ 
 manent title to the water, outside territory will not, 
 and can not, raise the money to install the necessary 
 distributing systems. With annexation or consoli¬ 
 dation, however, the water right becomes permanent, 
 and on that basis it will be possible for the annexed 
 or consolidated sections to finance their own dis¬ 
 tributing systems. Several years have been spent in 
 various efforts to have Los.Angeles approve plans 
 for selling the aqueduct water to outside territory 
 while that territory still remained outside the city 
 boundaries. None of these plans has met with the 
 approval of the City and it certainly now is time, in 
 the interest both of the aqueduct enterprise and of a 
 lower tax rate, that the City adopt the plan, direct 
 and simple, of annexing or consolidating territory 
 and distributing water therein. 
 
 (2) Annexation or consolidation will eliminate 
 
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several serious legal uncertainties.. If Los Angeles 
 steps outside the field of selling water to its own 
 inhabitants, and proceeds to undertake a general 
 water business, selling to outside customers, it is 
 difficult to say to just what extent the courts would 
 hold that the City, in relation to water sold outside 
 its boundaries, had brought upon itself the obliga¬ 
 tions and regulations that apply to private water 
 companies selling water for profit. Thus this ques¬ 
 tion arises: Would it be possible for land owners, 
 along the line of the aqueduct, perhaps in Antelope 
 Valley, or the Owens River Valley, to compel the 
 City to sell them water? Good legal opinion 
 answers this question in the negative, but some 
 Supreme Court, and not our local attorneys, would 
 ultimately decide that question. Here is another 
 question: Would the City of Los Angeles, or would 
 the State Railroad Commission, have the right to 
 fix the rates at which Los Angeles would sell water 
 outside its boundaries? From these and similar legal 
 uncertainties annexation will save the City. Such 
 questions can never arise if the City sells water only 
 to territory that first comes inside the city boun¬ 
 daries. 
 
 (3) Annexation or consolidation will be a step in 
 the direction of City and County consolidation. For 
 a number of years Los Angeles has desired to relieve 
 itself of the expensive dual government, city govern¬ 
 ment and county government, which it now has, and 
 has desired to consolidate these two local govern¬ 
 ments into one government, known, under the Con¬ 
 stitution of the State of California, as a Consolidated 
 City and County Government. No progress has 
 been made on this problem in the past, but if Los 
 Angeles, by various extensive annexations, can so 
 enlarge its boundaries that the City itself shall cover 
 i practically the entire area necessary to form a 
 proper consolidated city and county government, 
 
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then the difficulties of the problem will have been 
 greatly simplified. y . 
 
 (4) Annexation or consolidation will give Los 
 Angeles official standing as the metropolis of the 
 Pacific Coast. Greater Los Angeles, co-extensive 
 with the territory receiving aqueduct water, will have 
 a population, assessed valuation, bank clearings, v. 
 building permits, etc., in excess of any other city on 
 the Pacific Coast. All this has an economic value to 
 which Los Angeles is entitled by reason of the great 
 investment it has made and the risk it has incurred 
 in the Owens River Aqueduct enterprise. Wherever 
 the aqueduct water is placed—be it north, south, east 
 or west—there will the great development of the 
 future be found, and that development should be a 
 part of, and help to constitute, the Greater Los 
 Angeles that is to be. 
 
 B. General Plan of Annexation or Consolidation 
 
 (1) Annexation or consolidation shall be a con¬ 
 dition precedent to the furnishing of water to any 
 territory. 
 
 (2) Annexed territory shall bear its proportionate 
 share of the Aqueduct, Power and Harbor bonds, 
 but not of the balance of the outstanding indebted¬ 
 ness of the City, for the two reasons that either the 
 remaining bonded indebtedness has been created for 
 purely local purposes or in particular cases is of 
 such comparatively small amounts as not to merit 
 consideration. 
 
 (3) The more distant annexed territory, or cities 
 consolidating with Los Angeles, shall have, if desired 
 by the voters thereof, local boards of public works 
 to pass on questions relating to streets and local 
 public works and oversee the same, all under the 
 direction of the City’s Board of Public Works. We 
 recommend that the functions of such local boards 
 of public works, having first been established by t 
 ordinance, shall thereafter be further established as 
 
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may be necessary in the form of a charter amend¬ 
 ment, to be adopted by the City. The purpose of 
 such charter amendment should be to make a more 
 perfect provision, than can be made by ordinance, 
 for insuring local jurisdiction over purely local mat¬ 
 ters. ' In this manner we believe an effective system 
 of borough government could be inaugurated. 
 
 (4) Agricultural sections shall be classified as 
 such in contradistinction from City sections and 
 shall have sixty (60%) per cent, of the annual taxes 
 they pay for the general running expenses of the 
 City set aside to constitute a road and improvement 
 fund for general public improvement and road 
 work in such agricultural sections. To balance this 
 road fund arrangement, the City shall not attempt 
 to furnish to the agricultural sections those features 
 of city expenditures not required by agricultural 
 sections, such as expenditures for parks, playgrounds, 
 garbage collection, and, to a large extent, expenses 
 for fire and police protection. 
 
 (5) The municipal water system shall be extended 
 to all annexed or consolidated territory. Annexed 
 or consolidated territory shall pay for its local dis¬ 
 tributing systems, to be acquired or installed, owned 
 and controlled by the City, for the distribution of 
 water, but the City shall construct, as main lines or 
 conduits carrying the aqueduct water to the local 
 distributing systems, the trunk lines known as the 
 Glendale line, including connection with the north¬ 
 ern and eastern portions of the City; the Fernando 
 conduit, conveying the water to a storage reservoir, 
 and the Chatsworth main, to be extended from the 
 storage reservoir to a connection with th*#tos An¬ 
 geles city trunk line; said main lines or conduits to 
 be built to the extent and of the capacity sufficient 
 to take care of the needs of the City and of any 
 additional territory which shall be annexed or con¬ 
 solidated or planned to be annexed to or consoli¬ 
 dated with the City. 
 
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The particular manner in which the various an¬ 
 nexed districts shall raise the money with which to 
 pay, each for its own local distributing system, may 
 well be varied to suit the different needs of the 
 various districts. Should a large area, such as the 
 San Fernando Valley, desire to organize, subsequent 
 to its annexation to the City, into an irrigation dis¬ 
 trict under the so-called Shenk Act, for the purpose 
 of raising funds with which to install a local dis¬ 
 tributing system, we believe that the City should 
 approve such a method of financing the cost of said 
 local distributing system. We believe that organi¬ 
 zation of territory into an irrigation district prior to 
 its annexation, or under the so-called Bridgford Act, 
 would be contrary to the annexation program which 
 we recommend. 
 
 (6) Extension of any light and power system 
 which the City may install shall be made in annexed 
 or consolidated sections on the same general plan 
 that may be followed within the present City 
 boundaries. 
 
 (7) Annexed or consolidated territory desiring 
 to connect with the outfall sewer to the sea shall 
 have the right to do so, and the City shall increase 
 the capacity of the outfall sewer from time to time, 
 as may be necessary. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 (Signed) H. H. ROSE, President. 
 
 MARTIN F. BETKOUSKI, Vice-President. 
 GEORGE B. HARRISON, Secretary. 
 RALPH L. CRISWELL, 
 GEORGE H. DUNLOP, 
 
 MILES GREGORY, 
 
 LESLIE R. HEWITT, 
 
 IRVING H. HELLMAN, 
 
 ORRA E. MONNETTE, f 
 
 Municipal Annexation Commission. 
 
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