Tiny Latino neighborhood has resisted joining Anaheim

Even at 10 miles from the sea, they live on an island.

Their mailing addresses say Anaheim, but for generations the families of Colonia Independencia have lived in a municipal no man's land, a barrio settled long ago by the migrants who worked Orange County's farmland.

Now, the roughly 200 families in the generations-old Latino immigrant neighborhood are being urged -- pressured, some say -- to become a part of one of the state's largest cities.

It's not a simple question in a place where residents have invested so much. They have poured the cement for the neighborhood's basketball court, planted the grass in the park, operated their own water district and gathered as their children were baptized and married at the Misión del Sagrado Corazón, the neighborhood's 83-year-old Catholic church.

Yet in the eyes of some, the three-block neighborhood of simple wood and stucco houses sitting on large lots is feeling its age and could use a helping hand.

Paint peels from abandoned houses that have stood empty for years. Makeshift plumbing and rickety storage sheds have popped up in the absence of steady code enforcement. Nearly every night, teenagers throw trash over backyard fences at the sheriff's cruisers patrolling for gang activity.

Southern California is peppered with neighborhoods that have resisted being pushed into cityhood, from historic barrios to planned subdivisions -- holdouts such as tiny Rossmoor along the Los Angeles-Orange County line and Hacienda Heights in the San Gabriel Valley.

But the debate in Colonia Independencia runs deep. Some worry that the neighborhood's character and sense of independence will wither if it throws in with Anaheim; others think becoming part of Anaheim is the only way to root out gang violence and blight.

La Colonia, as residents call the neighborhood, is tucked into a 500-acre unincorporated swath known as the Southwest Island, surrounded by Anaheim, Garden Grove and Stanton. Residents, used to relying on strained county government for basic services such as street sweeping and policing, have been warned for years that county officials are eager to get such outposts off their hands and dump the expenses on local cities.

Residents of La Colonia rejected annexation in 2005. Government officials have changed tacks, now going after residents house by house and urging them to agree to become part of Anaheim.

To officials in Anaheim, taking on the neighborhood is simply the right thing to do: It would consolidate the city with surrounding communities, give residents more reliable services and provide the expanded voting rights and steadier hand of a city government.

"It's inevitable that all that area will be part of a city," Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle said. "It's not going to be some island forever."

The specter of cityhood has stoked fear and suspicion in La Colonia. Adopting the mostly residential area would cost the city more than the tax money it would gain, and many residents wonder why Anaheim even wants them.

Neighborhood skeptics fear that if residents give in, Anaheim will raze their neighborhood for redevelopment and transportation improvements, including the current widening of nearby Katella Avenue.

Liz Sepeda, 66, who has lived in the neighborhood since she was 19, worries that becoming part of Anaheim would make it easier for the government to drive out property owners, one home at a time.