Cypress evolves from cow town to community town

Cypress evolves from cow town to community town

Aug. 3, 2015

Updated Aug. 4, 2015 11:54 a.m.

BY DAVID WHITING / STAFF COLUMNIST

[email protected]

Cypress

Hidden gem: The Vessels Club, dressy with great steaks says the mayor, for lunch and dinner, Los Alamitos Race Course, 714-820-2681

Size, population: 6.6 square miles, 49,087 residents

Demographics: 43.6 percent white, 31.3 percent Asian, 18.4 percent Hispanic, 4.9 percent two or more races

Median household income: $78,364

Median home price: $617,500

Sources: U.S. Census, CoreLogic

This is part of an ongoing series highlighting every Orange County city.

School rankings open a Pandora’s box. Some experts rely on student-teacher ratios, academic performance, college readiness. But should art or athletics figure in?

It’s a mysterious wizard’s brew – unless there’s a school so far ahead it clearly deserves a shout-out. That recognition is even more important when the topic is one of Orange County’s least-appreciated cities.

Is our county’s best high school Irvine’s University High, Fullerton’s Sunny Hills? Please. Welcome to Cypress’ Oxford Academy. Often thought to be a military school or a private school, U.S. News & World Report says this public high school is the 16th best in the nation.

Yes, in the nation. Uni ranks 298th; Sunny Hills 550th.

It’s a week ago and I ride shotgun. Cypress Mayor Rob Johnson drives. City Manager Peter Grant, with the city just over a year, is in back. We check out Oxford Academy.

It’s the middle of summer. But it might as well be the week before SAT exams. The campus appears as busy as ever. Cars nearly fill a parking lot. A gaggle of girls in cross country attire run with speed and grace.

There’s a lot more to Cypress than many of us know.

DAIRY CITY

Perception of a place can be years behind reality, even decades.

When I looked into moving to North County in the late 1990s, I heard Cypress was seedy. Perhaps I misunderstood. Make that hayseedy.

“It was a cow town,” Johnson says. “There were more cows than people.”

But that was a half-century ago. Officially named Dairy City when Cypress was incorporated in 1956, the area was cow country until real estate prices shot up in the 1960s. Farmers left for cheaper pastures in Riverside County, and new residents moved in.

The first thing the ’60s settlers did was change the town’s name. The second thing they did was build.

In the late 1950s, Cypress had about 1,700 residents. Today, the city has just under 50,000.

We cruise Katella Avenue, and it is nothing like the Katella I recall when thinking of moving to the area. It is more like the office buildings in, well, Irvine.

Gleaming 21st century structures in campus-like settings line the avenue. We pass the headquarters for Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc., United HealthCare Services Inc., Yamaha Motor Corporation USA.

We drive a little more. On my right there’s Bandai America Inc. You’ve never heard of Bandai? It’s a toy company, and you probably know its partnerships well. Think Power Rangers.

Johnson confides that Bandai is moving to be closer to Mattel in El Segundo. He adds that Vans, the skate, surf, snow company, is moving as well. The company needs bigger digs. But the mayor has no worries.

“This has been a great launching pad for them. And these are $30-50 million buildings,” Johnson offers. When a company leaves for something bigger, he says, another business quickly moves in.

As we drive, massive corporate lawns are being transformed into drought-resistant landscapes.

“These companies are good neighbors,” the mayor reports. That philosophy extends to City Hall as well.

“We have a lot of respect for private property rights,” Grant says. “And we have a very business-friendly City Council.”

RACETRACK GOING?

Like many cities, Cypress is oddly shaped. Just when you think you’ve left its southern boundary, you discover you are still in Cypress.

Consider Los Alamitos Race Course. It’s in Cypress. Cottonwood Church with an address in Los Alamitos? Cypress.

It’s near Cottonwood Church on the city’s southwest corner that Cypress is in the midst of seeing its latest large development come to life. It’s a 55-plus community with 244 units.

“We don’t have a catch-up situation,” Grant reports. “But we do have a keep-up situation.”

As we drive, Johnson is equally quick to point out the city is proud of its diversity. That includes embracing a growing Korean population as well as a wide range of household incomes. “Cypress is a melting pot. It’s great.”

We pass a 15-unit Habitat For Humanity project. The mayor says, “Everyone is welcome in our community.”

The biggest project in the future? The racetrack, Johnson says. The site is zoned mixed use, covering 155 acres. Johnson predicts the track won’t be around in two decades. That may seem like a long way away, but realize City Hall is in the midst of planning for the next four decades.

The city expects a restaurant zone near Katella Avenue and Valley View Street called the Boardwalk to be finished in the next few years. And later the city will turn toward asking residents what they would like to see in place of the racetrack.

Other major developments include changes at Cypress College, where new buildings will be going in over the next two decades. The funding comes from Measure J, a voter-approved bond in the November 2014 election.

“The initial projects,” the college reports, “will include addressing facility needs of the science, engineering, math programs, build-out of the Library/Learning Resource Center, and a Veterans Resource Center.”

Still, there is nothing some city officials are more proud of than the roads in Cypress. That’s right. Roads.

“You know you’re in Cypress,” the mayor boasts, “just by the streets.”

COMMUNITY BONDS

On July 25, Cypress celebrated its 59th birthday with what officials believe is the largest single-day festival in Orange County, the Cypress Community Festival.

Nestled in 22-acre Oak Knoll Park, the festival included the A List band, a chili cook-off and eight little girls dancing in gold lamé outfits.

Still, the coolest thing about the festival were the dozens of men and women in red shirts. They were the workers. They also were unpaid volunteers.

Johnson holds up two fingers forming a “V.” “Do you know what this stands for?” I roll off victory, peace, V-Day. Wrong.

“In Cypress,” the mayor explains, “that stands for volunteerism.” He adds there recently was a list of city commission openings, all unpaid. For eight slots, 27 people applied.

The farms may be gone. The city may have ballooned. But there’s still plenty of Midwest sensibility.

Contact the writer: [email protected]