Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : High Desert Makes Pitch to Valley Companies : Business: It’s the fifth year of the springtime ad campaign. Lancaster and Palmdale are offering a fee rebate to firms bringing at least 25 employees.

Accompanying the blooming poppies in what seems like an annual rite of spring, Antelope Valley officials are once again reaching out to San Fernando Valley businesses, trying to persuade firms to move to the high desert.

Radio ads that aired this week on a Los Angeles news station were touting the Antelope Valley as the place “where smart business goes to grow.” The ads were part of a $120,000 campaign sponsored by the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale and the Antelope Valley Local Development Corp.

This is the fifth year Antelope Valley leaders have waged a springtime ad campaign to attract business.

This year, however, the high desert has sweetened its pitch: Lancaster and Palmdale will give a $2,000-per-job rebate on local fees to businesses bringing at least 25 employees and investing at least $1 million.

“We certainly will not be shy about mentioning that,” said Vern Lawson Jr., executive director of the valley’s nonprofit Local Development Corp.

Antelope Valley leaders said the incentive program is the first of its kind in California. They hope it will attract 1,000 new jobs over the coming year.

Hawkins Advertising and Public Relations, the firm hired to run the Antelope Valley’s campaign, is planning newspaper ads next month that showcase the financial incentive program.

The firm also plans to mail a newsletter to several thousand business and real estate executives that will include a reprint of a California Business magazine article naming Lancaster the best mid-size city in the state to do business.

The magazine cited low real estate prices and the incentive program as reasons for the ranking.

Cynthia Burgess, an account executive with the Newport Beach-based firm, said this spring’s campaign will not include any billboards because the two rented last spring did not generate many calls.

The Antelope Valley’s spring campaign this year also advertised the valley’s 26th annual Business Outlook Conference, which last month drew an estimated 800 people, about half from outside the high desert.