Council Feels Wrath in Road Dispute

This city’s officials have taken on a number of hot issues in Santa Clarita’s short history--sprawling developments, landfills, bans on smoking. But the battles over these issues pale when compared to the nasty public debate set off by the proposed construction of a three-mile road and bridge to complete an east-west traffic route through the city.

Tuesday night, a boisterous crowd of about 150 Valencia residents, many of whom participated in a protest march about the road project Monday morning, dominated Santa Clarita’s City Council meeting. They say that the extension would bring an unwelcome increase in traffic to their neighborhoods, endangering local children and raising the noise level.

They loudly jeered city staffers as the staffers presented traffic circulation data to support construction of the three-mile route. They guffawed at photographic slides of the existing Wiley Canyon Road because it showed the road, which they say is already busy with traffic, almost deserted.

“This is ridiculous,” one audience member griped. “When did you take those pictures?” another asked incredulously.

As proposed, the project would include construction of Wiley Canyon Bridge to extend the easternmost end of Wiley Canyon Road over the south fork of the Santa Clara River. Via Princessa would be lengthened to meet it.

The project would cost an estimated $22 million, and has been on the area’s General Plan since the 1960s. The heckling was unusual for the Santa Clarita City Council. Officials here have occasionally weathered personal attacks about individual issues, but these officials could not remember a time in the city’s eight-year history when they faced an unruly crowd that yelled as staff members presented reports.

Mayor Jo Anne Darcy rapped her rarely-used gavel several times to quiet audience members and, after a city engineer was booed, Councilman Carl Boyer made a motion to adjourn the session altogether.

The meeting proceeded, but frequent outbursts slowed the discussion and exasperated council members.

“We have never been treated so rudely,” Boyer told audience members at the end of the session.

The protesters were obviously passionate about the issue.

“That road affects seven schools, with a total population of more than 5,000 students,” said Gonzalo Freixes, president of the Newhall School District’s board of trustees. “If you approve this you are putting children at risk of death and injury.”

The protesters urged council members to build an alternate east-west route by extending Magic Mountain Parkway into Via Princessa.