‘We Are in the Process of Trying to Define Ourselves’

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford is filled with civic pride, but he also is a realist.

He has seen the despair of hard-working families deprived of quality time because of long commutes. He understands that some parents lose control and hurt their children--and each other. He worries that Palmdale’s steady stream of newcomers has left his city of nearly three decades without shared values and traditions.

“We are,” Ledford says, “in the process of trying to define ourselves.”

Ledford stresses again and again that most Palmdale residents are satisfied living far from the urban chaos where, he says, the streets are less safe and the schools less stable. “They’re looking for a better living environment,” the mayor says, “and I’m convinced they have it here in the Antelope Valley.”

Even so, he says, city leaders know that significant problems exist, especially among commuter families.

“I don’t think they really appreciate the effect of the commute until a couple years after they make the move here,” he says. “The long days do have an effect on your mental well-being. . . . After time, it wears on you.” And when both parents are commuting, he says, “the children are definitely going to be affected.”

To help such families, Ledford says, Palmdale has adopted a “very proactive” stance. Among other things, he says, Palmdale has the largest domestic violence center in the nation and a city-sponsored parenting class that has been attended by thousands of people, a number of whom have been ordered there by courts and child welfare officials. “Just today,” he says, “I must have signed 100 parenting class graduation certificates.”

What’s more, says Ledford, who works in the Antelope Valley, “we have finally gotten our act together” and are working hard to diversify the city’s job base, which was decimated by defense industry cutbacks. The hope, Ledford says, is that with the creation of more local jobs, fewer people will be forced to commute.

Until then, Ledford says, some hard decisions will have to be made by suffering, double-income families: Should one parent quit work and stay home? Is the Antelope Valley even the right place to be?

“A sense of family is very important,” says Ledford, whose wife stays home with their 13-year-old son. “Sometimes we don’t appreciate that until we lose them.”