Simi Highlights Its Ties to Reagan

Staking its claim as capital of “Reagan Country,” Simi Valley this week adopted a new slogan linking the city to the late 40th president.

The City Council voted unanimously Monday night to use the motto “Home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library” on city letterhead, marketing materials and a welcome sign at a major city intersection.

“Having the library in our city is a pride thing,” Mayor Bill Davis said Tuesday. “Why not have it on your stationery and on your city signs?”

Amid much fanfare and celebration, the presidential library and museum opened 13 years ago on a hilltop just outside the city limits. Reagan’s death last month at the age of 93 once again cast the international spotlight on this conservative suburb in eastern Ventura County.

“We have a world-class institution in this community that brings a lot of positives,” Councilman Glen Becerra said. “We were shown around the world for 10 days as the final resting place of the president. That’s quite an honor and we should be very proud of that fact.”

During 32 hours of public mourning for Reagan, more than 118,000 people filed past his flag-draped casket in the museum lobby. Later that week after a national funeral in Washington, Reagan’s body was returned to Ventura County and interred in a mausoleum on the library grounds overlooking rolling hills, a lush farm valley and the ocean in the distance.

“Given the outpouring of citizen affection when the president passed away -- it was an incredible experience -- it tells us our people are very in tune that we adopt the slogan,” Mayor Pro Tem Paul Miller said. “Everybody I talked to thought it was a great idea.”

City stationery will be altered as current stock runs out. The cost of changing the slogan at the city’s welcome sign at Madera Road and Los Angeles Avenue is estimated at $3,500 to $5,500, depending on whether the wooden sign is replaced or retrofitted.

“It’s a great honor for the president. It’s important for us to be a part of the community, especially Simi Valley and Ventura County,” said library Executive Director R. Duke Blackwood, adding that the library already includes the city’s name in its logo.

The council initially considered changing the city’s old slogan -- “Simi Valley -- Gateway to Ventura County” -- in 2001 but decided against the Reagan reference, fearing it would make the city and its representatives appear too partisan. An informal poll of Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce members produced lukewarm support for the change and several letters from the public opposed the idea.

The board of the Simi Valley Historical Society also voted against updating the slogan at the time, thinking the community’s rich history back to an 18th century Spanish land grant should not be eclipsed by a library only a decade old, said John Childress, past president of the society. But Reagan’s death and the outpouring of public support that followed renewed interest in the idea for a new slogan.

“Look at what occurred at the death of the president and the people who came from all over the world -- and who continue to come -- to the city. It’s no longer a political thing of Democrats and Republicans,” Davis said. “That put us on the world map.”

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) applauded the council action’s and said the new slogan is a natural for a town bisected by California 118, later renamed the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

“They did a very wise thing ....The library really is a landmark that people can identify with,” he said. “If there was ever a city on the planet that is ‘Reagan territory,’ it’s Simi Valley.”