Santa Clarita Plays Politics With Alphabet

What’s in a name?

Everything, say proponents of a slow-growth measure in Santa Clarita that has finally been assigned a name: Measure A.

“ ‘A’ for A+,” said John Drew, a political science professor and co-author of the measure. The designation by the Santa Clarita city clerk is “a very good omen for a good cause.”

Not according to opponents.

“ ‘A’ for atrocious,” said Scott Voltz, president of Santa Clarita Residents for Responsible Planning. “Measure A would create an atrocious living environment, atrocious traffic, atrocious overcrowding in the schools and an atrocious lack of funds in the city.”

Measure A would allow only 475 new housing units in the city annually through the year 2002 if voters approve it April 14.

Opponents and proponents had been eagerly waiting for weeks for the city to name the measure so that they could easily refer to the initiative in their campaigns. Since it was proposed more than a year ago by the Citizens Assn. for a Responsible Residential Initiative on Growth, or CARRING, it’s been clumsily referred to as the “slow-growth initiative” or “no-growth initiative,” depending on the speaker’s political persuasion.

Santa Clarita City Clerk Donna Grindey could have picked any letter in the alphabet to identify the initiative but settled on “Measure A” because it is the first municipal ballot measure since the city was incorporated four years ago. “I’m a logical and orderly person, so I started at the beginning of the alphabet,” she said.

Measure P, named by the county, was an initiative that failed in 1989. It would have added between $75 and $200 to homeowners’ property tax bills.

Drew said CARRING may base part of its advertising campaign on the name. “ ‘A’ is the highest possible grade you can get,” he said. But Jack Watkins, a spokesman for the United Chambers, a coalition of local business groups, said ‘A’ stands for “awful.”