While many Long Beach neighborhoods could soon be sliced up or lumped into new governing districts over the next several months, residents of a little-known enclave in East Long Beach are mostly indifferent, because they don’t technically live in the city.

The unincorporated Long Beach island is bound by Woodruff and Palo Verde avenues on the east and west and is sandwiched between Heartwell Park and Conant Street. The roughly 500 homes within so-called Carson Park are technically part of unincorporated Los Angeles County, and governed by the Board of Supervisors.

Long Beach is just feet away in either direction, but the neighborhood can be spotted by its trashcans—they’re blue, green and black—as well as its pristine streets where residents don’t get ticketed for parking when the street sweepers pass. When they call 911, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and LA County Fire are dispatched instead of Long Beach’s first responders.

How the next council district lines are drawn (the neighborhood would likely fall into the 5th District) will have less of an impact on these residents than how the county determines the boundaries of the Board of Supervisors 4th District, along with state and federal district lines, including the state’s 33rd Senate district,  70th Assembly district and the 47th United States Congressional district.

Their homes sit blocks away from all three state and federal boundaries, which will be drawn by different commissions than the one drawing the city’s lines.

Their de facto “mayor” is Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, with the rest of the board standing in for their “city council.” If they want to speak to their local elected officials they have to drive to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles, not City Hall in Downtown Long Beach.

Carson Park’s status as an unincorporated part of LA County has its roots in a vote held over 70 years ago when new neighborhoods began voting to either be part of Lakewood or Long Beach. Their neighborhood chose neither.

But most residents love the set-up.

“You still live in Long Beach, but you live in a very special part of Long Beach,” said Melissa Balam, who moved to the neighborhood a few years ago with her family. “You live in the island.”

Balam, whose partner operates a business in Long Beach, said the island has its perks. There’s less red tape for businesses and residents who want to get things like building permits and potholes repaired. The entire neighborhood recently had its streets completely repaved, which means kids can confidently skateboard and bike down the street, Balam said.

It’s also one of the friendliest neighborhoods in the city. Balam was alerted to her resident status by a neighbor almost immediately, and this week she was having a similar conversation with a new neighbor who just closed escrow.

Not everyone knows they live in the over 2,600 square miles of unincorporated Los Angeles County, but everyone seems to know everyone else’s name.

Dave Radkey has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years and originally moved there because of its proximity to Heartwell Park and his deep involvement in Little League baseball. Radkey said back then houses across Carson Street in Lakewood typically sold for $20,000 more than those in the island.

Now, because of combination of paying county taxes instead of city taxes and a highly desirable dual-immersion elementary school in the neighborhood, houses in this neighborhood sell for $50,000 to $60,000 more on their side of Carson.

And if you want to fix your house up, you can skip the laborious process that Long Beach residents face when trying to obtain permits and inspections, he said.

“A lot of homeowners like to do things themselves,” Radkey said of home improvements. “The chance of a building inspector driving by to check for permits is very small.”

Councilwoman Stacy Mungo Flanigan, whose district includes the county island, said that her office often gets complaints about issues that the city can’t address due to jurisdictional issues, but she tries to point them in the right direction.

For sidewalk repairs and other issues handled by the county, she uses her experience as a county employee, where she’s served as a budget director for years, to connect them to the right service. But for park reservations or other services the city provides, Mungo Flanigan says her office treats them like her other constituents.

The two city services provided to the island are gas and water, something that has elevated Angela Kimball’s name to relevance when it comes to the future of Long Beach’s fiscal health.

Kimball is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the city’s practice of transferring excess water and sewer revenue into the general fund. No one in the island got to vote on Measure M, but they have to pay the increased rates and Kimball’s challenge, in part, challenges the constitutionality of that.

The case could be decided later this month and if the city loses it could mean $9 million less for the city’s general fund going forward. Kimball says while the neighborhood is a bubble, they pay close attention to what happens outside of that bubble.

“Is it better to be in the county or the city? This is as strong as a community in the city,” Kimball said. “But everything the city does affects us.”

Kimball has lived in the island for 23 years and has become a leader in the neighborhood and has taken to proactively placing booklets on new neighbors’ porches to help them navigate the labyrinth of county departments they’ll eventually need for something.

When it comes to redistricting, Kimball said that most people can’t name their state senator or assembly representative just like most people in Long Beach can’t name their council representative. Most people just want their needs addressed, regardless of who’s elected.

She said the broad sentiment in the island is to remain as part of the county despite some newer neighbors suggesting the neighborhood reconsider its island status. Every type of government has its processes, Kimball said, it’s a matter of figuring out who to call.

“A lot of people don’t know they have resources because they don’t know how the resources work,” Kimball said. “It’s not as daunting as you think.”

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