Bid to Turn Santa Clarita Valley Into City to Begin

Leaders of a campaign to bring five communities in the Santa Clarita Valley together to form one sprawling city say their drive to obtain at least 13,000 signatures on petitions will begin at 5 p.m. Thursday.

Under county Local Agency Formation Commission regulations, cityhood backers have six months to gather the signatures of 25% of registered voters to qualify for a ballot initiative. However, a spokesman for the group pushing cityhood, the City Feasibility Committee, said it will try to collect the signatures much more quickly in an attempt to get the issue on the November ballot.

“We hope to have the necessary number of signatures to LAFCO within two to three months,” said Louis Garasi, committee co-chairman.

Garasi said 70 volunteers already have been recruited to circulate petitions among registered voters in Castaic, Newhall, Canyon Country, Saugus and Valencia, the communities that would form the proposed new city of Santa Clarita. Committee members will hand out petitions to volunteers at the kickoff event, which will continue until 7 p.m. at Comella’s restaurant in Valencia.

Hitting the Streets

“We expect the bulk of our volunteers to hit the streets Friday and Saturday,” Garasi said.

The petition states that it is time for residents of the Santa Clarita Valley “to take responsibility for our own local government,” Garasi said, especially in light of the building boom in the area.

Connie Worden, a committee spokeswoman, said proposals are pending for the development of 52,000 residential units in the five communities. Construction and occupation of the units will nearly triple the area’s population by the year 2000, from 102,000 to about 275,000, she said.

Worden said a local governmental agency is needed to plan for new roads, schools, police and fire protection, as well as other services, to accommodate the increased number of residents. This kind of planning is not being done, she said.

In addition to uncontrolled growth, a rallying point for cityhood backers has been a proposal by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley to build a state prison on 520 acres of city-owned land in Saugus.