Towns debate joining a greater Santa Clarita

When the city of Santa Clarita was formed two decades ago, community leaders decided there was strength in numbers. They drew the city boundaries to include four of the largest Santa Clarita Valley communities: Newhall, Saugus, Canyon Country and Santa Clarita.

The cityhood effort came during a period of major development in north Los Angeles County amid concerns that the voices of residents were not being heard downtown.

Now, the area is experiencing another development boom, and another group of unincorporated communities -- those on the western edge of the Santa Clarita Valley -- are talking about local control.

And once again, there is a debate about whether to go it alone or join with the larger city of Santa Clarita.

The west valley is a vast swath of homes, businesses and undeveloped land that stretches along Interstate 5 from the master-planned community of Stevenson Ranch north to the older, unincorporated towns of Val Verde and Castaic.

Some residents are pushing ahead with a cityhood drive, arguing that the area should have its own city council to deal with local issues. Others want to join Santa Clarita and still others want to stay unincorporated with government run by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the unincorporated area, recently granted $25,000 to study each option, and the city of Santa Clarita is paying for its own review examining the feasibility of annexing the area.

“I think that the area has grown to a degree that there is interest in looking at what the options are,” said Dave Bossert, president of the West Ranch Town Council, an advisory panel to Antonovich on issues pertaining to Stevenson Ranch and other neighborhoods. “It’s part of the evolution of the area.”

A major issue is development. The north county area is the fastest-growing part of Los Angeles County. About 50,000 homes are slated to be built along the Interstate 5 corridor, including the 23,000-home Centennial development and the 20,885-unit Newhall Ranch.

Although neither is in the area being discussed, some smaller developments have raised concerns.

One is proposed for property behind Adele McPherson’s house. But if she wants to protest it, she will have to take time off work and drive 30 miles to a county planning meeting downtown.

McPherson and real estate broker Pam Ingram are circulating petitions in their Sunset Pointe neighborhood to gauge residents’ interest in being annexed by Santa Clarita, a move they said would make sense geographically and economically.

“Local government is good when it’s accessible, and the city of Santa Clarita is accessible because it’s only a few miles away,” said McPherson, a 16-year resident of the west valley, who works for the city of Santa Clarita in the community services department.

“We are one valley. We all use the same roads, we all use the same parks and we all use the same shopping center, so we should all be in one city.”

But some criticize this approach to local governance.

“There’s a feeling that it should be looked at in a big picture, not in bits and pieces,” said Paul Novak, an aide to Antonovich.

A proponent of the big picture approach is the city of Santa Clarita, which if it had a choice, would annex the entire area -- including Newhall Ranch to the north. City officials argue that the west valley and Santa Clarita are already so intertwined -- more west valley residents use the city’s parks and recreation programs than its own residents -- that annexing the west valley would be formalizing a situation that already exists.

It also would be beneficial to pool tax dollars generated in the Santa Clarita Valley, said Paul Brotzman, community development director for Santa Clarita.

“One of the benefits is that the more money that’s kept in the Santa Clarita Valley, the more services and facilities in the Santa Clarita Valley are enhanced, whether it’s on the west side or east side of the freeway,” Brotzman said. “Everybody wins.”

Santa Clarita officials say residents need look no further than the Antelope Valley -- where the twin cities of Lancaster and Palmdale compete for high-tax generating businesses, such as car dealers -- for an argument against creating a separate city to the west.

“Oftentimes when you have two jurisdictions side by side, you have a dysfunctional environment in some land-use planning issues,” said Brotzman, a former West Hollywood city manager. As an example, he said, if a big-box retailer wanted to open a store in the valley, the city would fight hard to have it on the east side of the freeway because of the large sales tax it would generate, and the city might offer financial concessions to the retailer to close the deal.

“All of the residents lose a part of their tax base and the company walks away with financial concessions resulting from unhealthy economic competition,” Brotzman said.

Citing another example, Brotzman pointed to a recent “Shop Santa Clarita” campaign that the city sponsored but then dropped after county officials became “enormously upset” because it might take business away from the west valley.

Whatever happens, a lot of money is at stake.

Santa Clarita city officials estimate that retailers and other businesses in the west valley, where the area’s first Wal-Mart is located, generate about $40 million a year in sales tax, slightly more than half of which is spent in the Santa Clarita Valley. The rest goes to other parts of the county, city officials said.

“The idea that our tax dollars are going outside the valley upsets a lot of people,” said Jeff Wilson, a Santa Clarita resident who runs the blog SCVTalk.com. “But I don’t think the county would ever want to let go of that.”

amanda.covarrubias@latimes.com