pecri933
2011-12-08 02:05:13 UTC
That's because city lines pierce right through the building, making it
two-city hybrid that was created when 100-year-old boundaries go
overtaken by development. From time to time, the oddity has create
confusion among business owners and residents seeking to get busines
licenses, pay taxes or obtain police services.Down the street, at Walke
Automotive, Ed Walker learned he was wrongly paying a utility tax i
Long Beach; even though his business' cash register is in Signal Hill.
A Signal Hill planning official once ventured out with a measuring whee
to appease residents complaining that a medical marijuana dispensary ha
opened without permission. Scott Charney, director of communit
development in Signal Hill, stepped off the distance from the curb t
ensure the dispensary was, in fact, a Long Beach business. Had it bee
in Signal Hill, the city would have moved to shut it down, he said.
The almost two-mile-long line runs along two corridors in the northwes
corner of Signal Hill. Cutting in about 60 feet from the curb, it goe
along Wardlow Road, from Walnut to Atlantic avenues, and on Atlantic
from Wardlow to Willow Street.
David Wilcox, artistic director at the ballet, learned of the unusua
city boundaries when a drunk driver plowed through some paint cans and
stage backdrop in his parking lot.He remembers that when he called Lon
Beach police to file a report, they told him the incident had occurre
on the Signal Hill side of the lot.
"I find it very amusing," Wilcox said. The students "find it hilariou
that they take class in Long Beach and have to go down the hall to us
the bathroom in Signal Hill," he added. How the line was drawn is par
of the oil town's lore.
Oil operators, hoping to avoid annexation of their fields b
then-expanding Long Beach, mounted an incorporation drive in the 1920s
Then, the hill overlooking Long Beach was pockmarked by impressiv
drilling derricks and small farms. When the city was created, th
boundaries that oil companies staked out included only their fields.
The arbitrary lines are little known to most residents today.But cit
officials are well aware of the lines and have no plans to redraw them.
"We can't change a city boundary unless we get a request," said Pau
Novak, executive officer of Los Angeles County's Local Agency Formatio
Commission. The group is charged with certifying and determining cit
lines when disputes arise and can make annexation recommendations o
unincorporated areas.
Novak said that although Signal Hill and Long Beach's lines are unusual
they're not unheard of. Culver City has a two-block stretch where i
shares commercial space with Los Angeles
--
pecri933
two-city hybrid that was created when 100-year-old boundaries go
overtaken by development. From time to time, the oddity has create
confusion among business owners and residents seeking to get busines
licenses, pay taxes or obtain police services.Down the street, at Walke
Automotive, Ed Walker learned he was wrongly paying a utility tax i
Long Beach; even though his business' cash register is in Signal Hill.
A Signal Hill planning official once ventured out with a measuring whee
to appease residents complaining that a medical marijuana dispensary ha
opened without permission. Scott Charney, director of communit
development in Signal Hill, stepped off the distance from the curb t
ensure the dispensary was, in fact, a Long Beach business. Had it bee
in Signal Hill, the city would have moved to shut it down, he said.
The almost two-mile-long line runs along two corridors in the northwes
corner of Signal Hill. Cutting in about 60 feet from the curb, it goe
along Wardlow Road, from Walnut to Atlantic avenues, and on Atlantic
from Wardlow to Willow Street.
David Wilcox, artistic director at the ballet, learned of the unusua
city boundaries when a drunk driver plowed through some paint cans and
stage backdrop in his parking lot.He remembers that when he called Lon
Beach police to file a report, they told him the incident had occurre
on the Signal Hill side of the lot.
"I find it very amusing," Wilcox said. The students "find it hilariou
that they take class in Long Beach and have to go down the hall to us
the bathroom in Signal Hill," he added. How the line was drawn is par
of the oil town's lore.
Oil operators, hoping to avoid annexation of their fields b
then-expanding Long Beach, mounted an incorporation drive in the 1920s
Then, the hill overlooking Long Beach was pockmarked by impressiv
drilling derricks and small farms. When the city was created, th
boundaries that oil companies staked out included only their fields.
The arbitrary lines are little known to most residents today.But cit
officials are well aware of the lines and have no plans to redraw them.
"We can't change a city boundary unless we get a request," said Pau
Novak, executive officer of Los Angeles County's Local Agency Formatio
Commission. The group is charged with certifying and determining cit
lines when disputes arise and can make annexation recommendations o
unincorporated areas.
Novak said that although Signal Hill and Long Beach's lines are unusual
they're not unheard of. Culver City has a two-block stretch where i
shares commercial space with Los Angeles
--
pecri933
