Same Fight, New City

In Santa Clarita, we have much the same scenario that Thousand Oaks had a decade ago when they successfully adopted by initiative virtually the same growth-control ordinance as our Measure A.

Four of their five council members then opposed it, just as with us, and their Chamber of Commerce, like ours, was against it. Ten years later, when it came up for renewal, their council and their chamber favored it and the measure was extended for 12 years by a vote of the City Council, with no initiative needed.

The current opposition to Measure A by our council thus parallels Thousand Oaks’. Perhaps our council looks at the initiative as a kind of rebuke, which it is, since more than 10,000 residents signed the petition for Measure A in record time after our council bowed to the developers and refused to put it on the ballot.

Our council has done much for the city and generally performs well except when they are tempted to be adjutants for builders in general and Newhall Land & Farming in particular.

Measure A is now up to the voters. Unlike the developers, Citizens Assn. for a Responsible Residential Initiative on Growth does not have funds for extensive mailings or the kind of dog-and-pony shows that developers, masquerading as citizens groups, will be able to put on to try to defeat the measure.

The main effect of Measure A will be to ensure that the General Plan has a chance to succeed by seeing that the amount of housing developments are, over the long run, consistent with the objectives of the General Plan.

ROBERT LATHROP, Newhall