Keys to the City : Santa Clarita Quest for Incorporation--and Clout--Has Many Boosters, No Vocal Enemies

As Art Donnelly, chairman of the City of Santa Clarita Formation Committee, puts it, the Santa Clarita Valley is “a relatively small area fighting an entire county.”

But, if incorporated, it can be “one of the largest and most powerful cities in Los Angeles County,” Donnelly said. “We would have clout with the county and in Sacramento. We don’t have that now. We’re at the mercy of the politicians.”

If voters approve Santa Clarita as the county’s 85th city Nov. 3, they will create Los Angeles County’s fifth-largest municipality in area and its seventh largest in population. With 110,000 residents, it would be surpassed in population only by the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Glendale, Torrance, Pasadena and Pomona.

By the time of incorporation in December, Santa Clarita’s population easily could surpass Pomona’s. That city, which incorporated in 1888, has about 200 more residents than fast-growing Santa Clarita. Within the proposed city’s 40-square-mile boundaries, however, are an estimated 20,000 housing units either under construction or on the drawing boards.

Population Surge Foreseen

Moreover, Santa Clarita would be one of the county’s most affluent cities. The average household income in the area is $42,981--$10,000 more than the county average. The city would have 47,350 registered voters.

Although the Local Agency Formation Commission, also known as LAFCO, trimmed the original cityhood proposal from 95 square miles, Santa Clarita is the largest area that agency ever has approved for incorporation. The city includes parts of the diverse communities of Newhall, Valencia, Saugus, Canyon Country and Sand Canyon.

With incorporation, Donnelly said, Santa Clarita would have the backing of two powerful statewide organizations--the Contract Cities Assn. and the League of California Cities--that represent municipalities. The city would continue to contract with Los Angeles County for police and fire protection as well as other services, including libraries and parks.

But the clout and power of which Donnelly speaks will not become a reality unless the cityhood committee is able to overcome voters’ fears about higher taxes, building moratoriums, budget deficits, loss of community identity and government itself.

“The cityhood committee’s job will be to get the issue to the people,” Donnelly said. “We’re going to have to do quite a bit of educating between now and Nov. 3.”

“A lot of people moved out here thinking they were escaping politics,” said Connie Worden, a vice chairman of the formation committee and a veteran of several efforts to stake out a political identity for the community. “We have to make them understand that this did not happen.”

Worden and Donnelly say incorporation eventually will bring better municipal services and local control over land-use planning without any tax increases.

“Incorporation means self-government and no increased taxes,” Worden said.

“We’re concerned with density problems, road gridlocks and quality building,” Donnelly said. “We are not against growth. We’re against sloppy growth.”

Worden predicted that there will be “chaos without local control” in the community.

“We don’t want to become another San Fernando Valley,” she said.

Cityhood also will make the community’s elected leaders more accessible, establish priorities that better meet local needs and provide a government directly responsible to residents, Worden and Donnelly said.

“People can participate in council meetings without driving 35 miles,” Donnelly said. “Problems people have can be solved faster.”

Instead of creating another layer of bureaucracy, which concerns some residents, incorporation will mean a transfer of power from a distant, larger government to a smaller government that is closer to the people, Worden said. The local school districts would remain separate entities and would not be affected by cityhood.

“We will have no more dollars for roads, perhaps, but we can call our own priorities as to which roads should be built first,” she said.

Community identity will be preserved, Worden said.

“Newhall will still be Newhall and be in the city of Santa Clarita,” she said, “just like Chatsworth is Chatsworth, but is in the city of Los Angeles.”

Identity Preserved

The diversity of housing and life styles in the Santa Clarita Valley ranges from Sand Canyon’s equestrian estates to Saugus’ comfortable tract homes.

As for a building moratorium, Donnelly said a city council might well call one while it is drafting a general plan for Santa Clarita.

So far, there is no organized opposition to the cityhood proposal.

Richard Wirth of the Building Assn. of Southern California said he doubts developers will oppose the cityhood election. He did not rule out the possibility that the organization might back some of the 27 candidates seeking seats on the five-member city council.

“We’ll watch the election with keen interest,” he said. “We’re concerned that the city be fiscally sound.”

The city should be fiscally sound. An estimated budget surplus predicted by LAFCO at almost $3.5 million might enable the city to contract for better police and fire services, Worden said.

An accounting firm hired by the cityhood committee estimated that the city’s budget could be in even better shape than LAFCO estimated. The same has been true in other cities that have incorporated in recent years, the firm noted.

“In the cases of Westlake Village and Agoura Hills, the first full budget year of operations resulted in revenue significantly above the estimates presented in LAFCO’s reports, while expenditures were very close to LAFCO’s estimates,” a report from the firm, Arthur Young & Co., stated.

“For both cities, this resulted in revenues well in excess of the funds required to maintain municipal services in the first full year of operations and thus resulted in large increases in the cities’ year-end fund balances.”

Revenue Predictions

For example, LAFCO estimated that Agoura Hills would have revenue of $2.1 million during 1984, its first year. But it actually had revenue of $3.5 million. LAFCO predicted that the city would spend $2.05 million, whereas it actually spent $2.1 million.

“Even under the worst conditions, the city will have a budget surplus,” Louis Garasi, a Santa Clarita cityhood committee vice chairman, told LAFCO.

The cityhood committee has been criticized by several residents and the Signal, a Santa Clarita Valley newspaper, for its insistence on a November election. Their main objection was that candidates for city office had barely 24 hours to collect signatures and file their nomination papers.

The limited time may have eliminated many qualified candidates, the critics charged.

However, Donnelly pointed out that the race attracted 27 candidates.

“We had people fly back from Hawaii to file their papers,” he said. “The ones who were going to run are running.”

An April election would have meant that the city would have incorporated in mid-May, leaving less than six weeks--until the end of the county’s fiscal year June 30--for the city to organize itself, Worden said.

“The seven-month transition period is an extremely valuable time,” she said. “Contracts must be written, negotiations finalized, staff recruited and hired, space rented, lines of credit established.”

The formation committee also has been blamed for allowing LAFCO to omit parts of the valley, an action Worden said the committee never intended.

“The persuasiveness of builders was extensive,” she said. “The committee didn’t cave in or sell out.”

LAFCO bowed to developers and left most undeveloped land in the Santa Clarita Valley out of the city, Worden said.

Annexation Possibilities

If residents of an area such as Pinetree--a developed part of Canyon Country now outside the proposed city’s boundaries--will work with the new city, they can be annexed within a short time, Worden said.

“They could be on the November, 1988, ballot,” she said.

Donnelly predicted annexations will be one of the first orders of business for the new city government.

“We are one valley,” he said. “We all want to be united.”

Cityhood proponents said they also will work to have the rapidly developing community of Castaic annexed to the city. However, Worden pointed out that county planners predict Castaic will have 50,000 residents within 10 years.

“They may want to form their own city,” she said.

Efforts to gain independence from Los Angeles County are not new to Santa Clarita Valley residents. Incorporation drives date back to the early 1950s, when an attempt to incorporate Newhall failed.

Twice, in 1976 and 1978, ballot propositions to carve a new county, Canyon County, out of the existing, sprawling county were voted down. Four previous cityhood drives to unite the valley’s distinctly different communities never reached the ballot.

Both efforts for a new county won the approval of the majority of voters in the affected area, 400 square miles that not only included the Santa Clarita Valley but Gorman to the north and Acton and Green Valley on the east.

Feared for Jobs

County workers feared they would lose their jobs and, led by firefighters, opposed the efforts to break off into Canyon County, said attorney Dan Hon, who headed the 1976 secession campaign.

“The firefighters told all of us that, if we voted for Canyon County, our hills would be torn down, houses would proliferate, people in cars would clog the streets and smog would set in,” Hon said. “Sure enough, we voted for Canyon County, and our hills have been torn down, houses have proliferated, and our streets are clogged and we have smog.”

At that time, the population of the 400-square-mile area was only 60,000, he said.

The Nov. 3 election will be what many cityhood proponents see as the Santa Clarita Valley’s last chance to achieve self-government.

“We’re on the threshold of being too big,” Worden said. “Next time around, it may be impossible to get the signatures of 25% of the registered voters.”

CANYON COUNTRY & SAND CANYON

Once a part of Saugus, Canyon Country is a mixture of housing tracts, mobile home parks, condominiums and new apartments. It also has an industrial hub--and an annual Frontier Days celebration. Sand Canyon, home of large estates, ranches and expensive custom homes, is divided from the rest of Canyon Country by the Antelope Valley Freeway. NEWHALL

The oldest community in the would-be city of Santa Clarita, Newhall was established in 1876. Gold was discovered in Newhall’s Placerita Canyon in 1842. Many early western movies were filmed here. It has retained its heritage through its Western Walk of Fame, William S. Hart Park and the preservation and relocation of historic buildings. It would have the new city’s only barrio. SAUGUS Saugus has many new housing tracts and shopping malls. It is the home of the Saugus Speedway, built in 1924 as a rodeo stadium. Southern Pacific Railroad established a station here in 1887 and the community grew up around it. A shopping center now rests where the town’s first schoolhouse was built in 1908. The community was named by its founder Henry Mayo Newhall after his birthplace in Saugus, Mass.

VALENCIA

Roadways turn into walkways for residents of Valencia. United by a “paseo” system of sidewalks linking parks, schools, homes and shopping centers, the city was dedicated in 1967 by the Newhall Land and Farming Co. An upscale, so-called master-planned community, Valencia was designed to be an independent entity, including residential, industrial and commercial development. Located here are the Los Angeles County civic center, College of the Canyons, the California Institute of the Arts--founded by the late Walt Disney--and the Valencia Industrial Center. It is named after its sister city in Spain. SHAPE AND SCOPE FACTS ABOUT THE PROPOSED CITY OF SANTA CLARITA

Makeup: Parts of Newhall, Valencia, Saugus, Canyon Country, Sand Canyon.

Size: 110,000 residents in 40 square miles.

L.A. County rank: Seventh in population, fifth in area, 85th to incorporate.

Population: 92% Anglo; average age, 29; average household income, $42,981.

Mail: No addresses or ZIP codes would change.

Schools: Districts would remain separate from the city.Government: Five-member city council; council members, paid maximum of $600 a month, would choose mayor from their ranks; 47,350 registered voters.

New housing: Estimated 20,000 units under construction or planned.

Services: County would provide fire, police, library and parks under contract.