Veteran of Cityhood Fight Has New Battle on His Hands : Santa Clarita: Carl Boyer III, one of the first city councilmen, is the first to face a recall effort.

For two decades Carl Boyer III fought for home rule in the Santa Clarita Valley--a foot soldier in the suburban revolution that culminated when Santa Clarita spurned Los Angeles County and incorporated in 1987. He was elected to the first City Council and won a new term in April.

Today, a counterrevolution may be in the works. And Boyer is its prime target.

A group of residents--shouting some of the battle cries Boyer used while fighting for cityhood--is trying to oust him from office in the first recall of an elected official attempted in Santa Clarita.

The Organization of Unsatisfied Taxpayers, or OUST, says Boyer is pro-development, arrogant and unresponsive to citizens. Boyer denies the charges. “I feel sad for the community,” he said. The recall is a “short-sighted action by some people who are really confused by the growth.”

Boyer is responsive to citizens, his supporters say, noting that his home telephone number is still listed in the telephone book and he even put it on his campaign flyers.

But Carmel Sizer, a spokeswoman for OUST, said, “This recall is by public demand. They want Carl Boyer out.”

The effort has just begun and recall petitions must still be certified by the city clerk before the activists can begin collecting the approximately 8,000 signatures they’ll need to force an election.

But the recall movement has already produced some philosophical debate, some hardball politics--and some soul-searching--in the city.

The attempt to oust Boyer has made some people reflect on the role of a council member and the nature of local democracy itself. Some see the recall as a fight between the city’s old guard, of which Boyer is a part, and activists new to the political scene.

And last week, the politics of the recall movement became ensnarled in the tangled web of personal relationships and rivalries in Santa Clarita. Boyer publicly questioned the integrity of Sizer, saying she has launched a personal vendetta against him.

Many longtime residents describe Santa Clarita as the largest small town around, a gossipy community that could serve as the setting for a soap opera--a Peyton Place with Spanish tile and stucco instead of wood-frame Colonials.

Private lives became public when Boyer revealed that a San Fernando Superior Court judge had issued a restraining order in May that forbids Sizer from harassing or contacting him, his family or Leon Worden, who is engaged to one of Boyer’s three daughters.

The order was prompted by tempestuous conflicts between Sizer and Worden, who lived together for five years before a bitter breakup about a year ago.

Worden claimed in court papers that Sizer threatened him, harassed him and once let the air out of his tires. Sizer responded in court that Worden had threatened her, abused her children and let the air out of her tires, too.

According to court records, the judge issued a mutual restraining order, telling Sizer and Worden to stay away from each other. Sizer also was told to stay away from the Boyer family.

Sizer said the judge also indicated from the bench that the order applies to Boyer and his family. Boyer insists that it does not apply to him.

Sizer said Boyer hurt his credibility by airing dirty laundry and denied that she was waging a personal war on the councilman. The real issue, she said, is Boyer’s pro-growth voting record. Revealing the court order was a weak attempt to win sympathy from the public, she said.

“They are grasping at straws,” Sizer said. “They are desperate.”

Boyer said he disclosed the court order to show the public that personal animosity was, in part, behind the recall. “It’s the overriding motive for at least one person, who claims she’s the spokesman for the group,” Boyer said.

But the blend of politics and personal lives in Santa Clarita is even more complex. Leon Worden is the son of Connie Worden, an influential figure in Santa Clarita who resigned from the city Planning Commission last month after critics revealed she had falsely claimed on her resume that she had earned a master’s degree in history.

Connie Worden said she resigned mainly to devote more time to her brokerage firm and apologized for the misstatement on her resume.

A letter sent to the city attorney challenging Worden’s resume was written by Brad Ambler, a member of OUST.

Ambler said he acted as a private citizen, not on behalf of OUST, but some City Hall watchers say the fall of Worden and the attack on Boyer are part of a general dissatisfaction with the inner circle of civic leaders who led the fight for incorporation.

John O’Dwyer, another OUST member, said the group targeted Boyer because of his overall record on development. The focal point of the recall, however, was Boyer’s vote last month on the controversial Santa Catarina condominium project, which was killed by the council in response to an avalanche of homeowner opposition.

Boyer was the lone council member to vote against killing the project. Boyer said he hoped the developer could be compelled to make badly needed road improvements in exchange for city approval of the project. Boyer said he knew the vote was unpopular but cast it “so I could look myself in the mirror in the morning.”

That vote has touched off debates on the proper role of an elected representative in a democracy.

“The role of the councilman is clear,” Ambler said. “He is there to represent the will of the people, not to go off on his own agenda and do what he wants to do. And that’s what Carl Boyer did.”

But Councilman Howard P. (Buck) McKeon said there are times when an official must let his heart--and the facts--guide him.

“Do you take a poll before each time you vote?” he asked. “Or do you vote your conscience? I just don’t want to see government by intimidation, threatening recall every time you don’t agree with someone.”

Sizer said widespread discontent will make the recall of Boyer succeed. But Boyer is well-known in Santa Clarita and was reelected to a four-year term in April with 4,042 votes, just 39 votes behind top vote-getter Jill Klajic, who ran on a controlled-growth platform.

A high school social science teacher, he has served on the local water board and community college board of trustees, and projects the image of a scholar with a dry sense of humor. He is a genealogist and has compiled passenger lists of sailing ships into books to aid historians. The books are “about as interesting as phone books,” but doing the research pleases him, he said.

Some residents fear a recall battle will further split a city already divided by the Santa Catarina controversy.

McKeon said the recall movement has discouraged him and some of his friends, who thought Santa Clarita could avoid the squabbles which often erupt in young cities as they struggle to learn the basics of home rule.

One of his friends recently told McKeon: “I thought we were better than this. I guess we’re not.”

Linda Calvert, an unsuccessful candidate in the City Council election in April, said she does not want to see a recall election, although she personally dislikes Boyer and once got into a shouting match with him at a council meeting over the Santa Catarina project.

“I think we’ve got enough wounds to heal in this community,” she said.