Sentinel staff report–
It’s a local “fact” that’s made the rounds, but it actually isn’t true. It even made it to the #1 spot on the city’s “Top 20 Facts About Citrus Heights” released earlier this year.
“At incorporation, Citrus Heights was the first city to incorporate in the state since 1963,” reads the first item on the Top 20 facts listed on the city’s website, as of Oct. 6th. Thanks to several comments from our readers and some subsequent fact-checking, The Sentinel found that in fact there were 88 cities that incorporated in California from 1963 up to 1997, when Citrus Heights officially incorporated as a city.
Asked how the incorrect date made its way onto the city’s “Top 20” facts, city staff member Devon Rodriguez, who presented the facts to the city council earlier this year, said the date had come from the city’s volunteer archivist, Teena Stern.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Stern said she had seen the 1963 date mentioned “a number of times” in material she helped archive for the city. “It’s a fact that’s been repeated many times throughout the years and no one thought to check it, including myself,” she said.
Citrus Heights History and Arts Commissioner Larry Fritz said he’d also heard the 1963 date referenced in the past and told The Sentinel “it sounds like one of those things where someone made an inaccurate statement at some point and it just proliferated.”
Although the date is wrong, the statement was likely intended to point out that Citrus Heights was the first city to incorporate in Sacramento County since 1946, when Folsom became a city.
The statement, although incorrect, also reflects the fact that cityhood efforts have become more rare across California in recent years, with Citrus Heights being one of just 12 cities that have incorporated in the past two decades. By comparison, during the 80’s alone, a total of 34 cities incorporated in the Golden State, according to the California Association of Local Agency Formation Commissions.
Given the fierce legal resistance Sacramento County put up against the effort to incorporate, Citrus Heights’ eventual success is credited with paving the way for two other cityhood efforts in Sacramento County. Elk Grove became a city in the year 2000 and Rancho Cordova incorporated in 2003.
Related article: Mayor reflects on fight to make Citrus Heights a city
