Santa Clarita Cityhood Backers Claim Enough Signatures for a Vote

Leaders of the campaign to forge a 90-square-mile city from five unincorporated communities in the fast-growing Santa Clarita Valley said they met a Monday deadline to collect enough signatures to put the measure before the voters.

The announcement Monday was another step in the effort to unite Castaic, Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus and Valencia into the city of Santa Clarita. The cityhood campaign still faces a number of requirements before it reaches the ballot. The 14,000 signatures collected must be certified as those of registered voters, and the measure must win the approval of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Local Agency Formation Commission.

Cityhood backers conceded that, even if the issue comes to a vote, it probably will not appear on the ballot until November of next year.

“I’d like to tell you that it would be in the spring of 1987,” said Connie Worden, spokeswoman for the City Feasibility Committee. “But Los Angeles County does not have an election then.”

Unless College of the Canyons, the William S. Hart High School District or another governmental body that includes all Santa Clarita Valley voters calls a special election next April, Worden said, the election will have to be held in November, 1987.

‘Keep Idea Before Public’

“We’ll need to keep the idea of cityhood before the public,” she said. “But I don’t think we’ll have a problem. I expect that, early next year, we’ll start hearing from all the people who want to run for office.”

Under the committee’s proposal, voters would choose the top five candidates for City Council in the same election in which they decide if Los Angeles County’s 85th city will be formed.

Cityhood proponents had six months, which expired Monday, to collect at least 13,000 signatures, representing at least 25% of the area’s 52,000 registered voters. They gathered more than 14,000--about 1,700 of them in a last-minute surge Saturday and Sunday, Worden said at a small rally at the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce in Newhall.

“We’re all just relieved,” Worden said. “We’re glad to be done.”

When the committee started gathering signatures Jan. 2 there were 42,000 registered voters in the five communities, said Louis Garasi, committee co-chairman.

“Now, there are 52,000,” he said. “It gives you a feel for the explosive growth that’s taking place in this valley.”

Cityhood Rationale

The committee now has 60 days to complete an informational paper covering the reasons that Santa Clarita should become a city, its financial resources and the services it would offer residents. Worden said she expects that document to be submitted, along with the signed petitions, to the county Local Agency Formation Commission in mid-July.

LAFCO will turn the petitions over to the county registrar-recorder’s office, which will count the signatures and determine whether they are those of registered voters. If not enough signatures are valid, Worden said, proponents will have 14 days to gather more.

Ruth Benell, executive director of LAFCO, said it will take the commission staff a minimum of four months to complete a financial feasibility study of the proposed city. The proposal must then be approved by both LAFCO and the Board of Supervisors before an election can be called.

Since 1962, there have been three efforts to form a city within the Santa Clarita Valley. All died in the planning stages. Two attempts to form a separate county failed to win the approval of voters elsewhere in the county.

Worden noted that there is no organized opposition to the latest cityhood effort.

“I think that the real thing that happened is that people are becoming alarmed at the rate of growth,” she said. “To them, it’s poor planning.”