Sales Tax Revenues

* From 1992 to 1994 I negotiated concessions on behalf of our town council for Stevenson Ranch residents in exchange for our support of the 700,000-square-foot Valencia Marketplace. In an attempt to keep the sales tax revenue of the project in the Santa Clarita Valley, we supported annexation into the city. Supervisor [Mike] Antonovich appears to be supporting a method to accomplish this end without annexation and pay off a political debt at the same time (“County to Offer Tax Breaks to Newhall Land,” March 29). A neat trick if you can do it. The only problem is that it is patently illegal.

When the city of Camarillo attempted a similar tax giveaway three years ago it was enjoined from doing so. Not only is such an arrangement a gift of public funds in which sales tax would become a profit center for the Newhall Land & Farming Co. and its tenants, it would further hurt competing businesses that are already pressured by the proximity of large value-oriented mass marketers. Moreover, the rationale for this plan, to keep the project from being annexed, flies in the face of the theory of local government organization found in the state’s Corteze-Knox Act.

At least two things are certain--in addition to the illegality of this plan: First, Newhall Land--which was beaten down last year for attempting to force the Santa Clarita Valley’s children into year-round multitrack schools in order to save on new home construction costs--hasn’t given up on trying to get taxpayers to subsidize its business ventures. Second, Antonovich knows who his friends are.

KEITH W. PRITSKER

Stevenson Ranch

Pritsker works in the Real Property-Environment Division of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.