Santa Clarita Councilman, Commissioner : Romance Blooms Too Openly, Critics Say

For more than a year, Santa Clarita City Councilman Dennis Koontz and his fiancee, city Parks and Recreation Commissioner Linda Storli, have acted like many couples preparing for matrimony, playfully flirting and holding hands in public.

In many settings, these displays of affection would go unnoticed. But in Santa Clarita, where small town sensibilities prevail, so many citizens have complained to Koontz’s council colleagues that his behavior is about the reach the level of official city business.

Mayor Jan Heidt said she intends to raise the subject Saturday at a “team-building” workshop designed to help the council work better. The workshop has been scheduled for weeks and was not called in response to Koontz’s actions.

Heidt said numerous inquiries and comments about Koontz’s relationship have reflected on the council as a whole and interrupted her duties. “I’m always answering questions about him and I’m tired of it,” she said. “People complain to me all the time.”

Koontz, 49, and Storli, 40--whose engagement has been common knowledge about town for a year--say the attention on their personal life is unwarranted and silly. “I really believe it’s good gossip, not news,” Storli said.

“If we were being improper in public, I could understand it,” Koontz said of the attention. “But we haven’t.”

Some people say, however, that the couple have been improper because they are both still married to other people, though their divorces are pending. Koontz said he has been separated from his wife for 18 months, and Storli said she has been separated from her husband for about a year. Koontz described his divorce as a formality and said he hopes to marry Storli soon.

While those circumstances do not impede the public duties of either official, Storli said they do rankle some citizens in the family-oriented, largely conservative community. “We wish it hadn’t happened that way,” she said.

Koontz, who plans to run for reelection in April, suggested that some critics have political motivations. “We’ve really started a political year,” he said.

Storli is Koontz’s appointee to the commission, but she said she was appointed before they began dating. She said Koontz does not influence her actions on the panel.

“We don’t always agree,” she said. “Sometimes we hotly disagree.”

Heidt said she also received several complaints from citizens after Koontz brought his 5-year-old son to a meeting between the council and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich on Monday. Koontz said his son did not disrupt the meeting and quietly played with a coloring book.

Another aspect of Koontz’s public behavior up for discussion Saturday does deal squarely with public issues. Koontz appeared at a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting this week and scolded the city parks director over a plan to charge swimming fees at city parks.

Heidt said council members should reserve their remarks for council meetings because they could influence the commission members, who are supposed to advise the council independently.

Koontz declined to respond to Heidt’s comments except to say there was nothing improper about him speaking before the Parks and Recreation Commission.

Councilman Howard P. (Buck) McKeon said he has received no formal complaints about Koontz but has heard remarks about the councilman. McKeon said he would rather not discuss internal council affairs in the press. “I really don’t want to get into it,” he said.