Cityhood, Annexation Votes Highlight County Elections

Developers are spending thousands of dollars to fight a measure on Tuesday’s election ballot that would create a city from four burgeoning communities in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The cityhood question has emerged as the hottest Los Angeles County election issue and is being watched by other fast-growing unincorporated communities under county control.

Also on the ballot is a proposal for the City of Los Angeles to annex 1,011 acres west of Chatsworth--which would be the largest addition made to the city in 22 years. School and municipal elections also are scheduled in 49 school districts, eight community college districts and 12 cities.

Council Elections

Cities electing council members are Agoura Hills, Bell Gardens, Duarte, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Lynwood, Montebello, Norwalk, Pomona, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates and Westlake Village.

On both sides of the Santa Clarita incorporation and the Chatsworth annexation issues is the perception that under city authority, less development would be permitted than under county authority.

Santa Clarita cityhood supporters say incorporation will give the 110,000 residents in the proposed city local control over growth and other emerging concerns in the 40-square-mile area, which includes the communities of Newhall, Valencia, Saugus and Canyon Country.

Developers fear a new city would restrict growth and are spending money to defeat the measure. During the last two weeks, organizations backed by the building industry have deluged voters with almost daily campaign mailings opposing cityhood.

Additionally, the Southern California Caucus, a political action committee supported by Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, is collecting donations from developers and others to help defeat the measure, campaign-disclosure reports show. The group has spent more than $30,000 on mailings and consulting services on behalf of opponents, the records show.

In comparison, pro-cityhood campaigners say limited finances have restricted them to sending only a couple of mailings.

If Santa Clarita Valley becomes a city, incorporation fever could spread. Cityhood efforts are under way in Calabasas, Diamond Bar and Malibu.

A win at the polls would make Santa Clarita the county’s 85th city--the latest to incorporate since West Hollywood in 1984--the fifth largest in size and the seventh largest in population. It would be surpassed in population in the county only by Los Angeles, Long Beach, Glendale, Torrance, Pasadena and Pomona.

The city of Santa Clarita would be one of the county’s most affluent, with an average household income of almost $43,000, which is about $10,000 more than the county average.

The area is growing fast. An estimated 20,000 housing units either are under construction or on the drawing boards within the proposed city. Just outside its boundaries are another 38,000 housing units in the planning stage as well as several thousand more acres of undeveloped land.

“I think it’s time the citizens who live here have some say about development going on around them,” said Connie Worden, spokeswoman for the City of Santa Clarita Formation Committee. “We’ve gone from tracts of homes to communities. Now it’s time to become a city.”

Covers a Wide Area

Worden pointed out that Santa Clarita is the largest incorporation ever approved by the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and that cityhood backers have promised to begin annexing surrounding territory as soon as possible after incorporation.

According to backers, cityhood will make the community’s elected leaders more accessible, permit priorities to be set locally and provide a government directly responsible to residents.

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

Mailers sent to voters’ homes by two anti-cityhood organizations backed with developer funds warn of increased taxes and creation of another level of government. They also maintain that the city would not be fiscally sound, despite an annual budget surplus of almost $3.5 million projected by LAFCO.

Seeking Council Posts

On the same ballot with incorporation for Santa Clarita are candidates running for a five-member City Council. The winners will take office if the cityhood vote carries.

Opponents charge that the cityhood issue was rushed onto the ballot. The Board of Supervisors voted to place the issue on the ballot one day before the filing deadline for candidates. Although 25 City Council candidates made the deadline, building industry leaders have said that voters are concerned that few of the candidates are qualified.

Formation committee members pushed the measure through so fast that “half the people out there don’t know there’s a cityhood election,” said Richard Wirth, a spokesman for the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California.

Worden labeled the opposition’s claims, such as higher taxes, “scare tactics” and predicted that the anti-cityhood campaign could backfire.

“People here are tired of being manipulated by outside forces whose only interest is profit,” Worden said.

Recent polls conducted by both sides of the issue found that 16% to 24% of the voters had not yet made up their minds on cityhood. The polls found a range of 38% to 45% favoring cityhood.

Efforts to break away from Los Angeles County rule are not new to Santa Clarita Valley residents. In 1976 and 1978, two measures to form a separate county won the approval of voters in the area, but were soundly defeated by voters in the rest of the county.

The Chatsworth annexation campaign also is pitting county government against city government. Proponents say that under city jurisdiction, stricter zoning would limit construction to low-density housing, which they favor.

Councilman Hal Bernson’s interest in adding the area to the city began three years ago about the time the county approved construction of a large condominium project in the proposed annexation area. He said he wants controls on that kind of high-density development in the future.

Annexation opponents among the 189 voters, most of whom live in a mobile home park, contend that the proposal could lead to increased costs for park management and larger utility bills for residents.