First off, thank God the election is over! It was an arduous, lengthy and frustrating two years to get to an Advisory Vote for the unincorporated communities. It was a process that was both enlightening and ridiculous in gathering up unbiased information to present to the community at large in a neutral forum.

Now that it is over the task at hand will be doing an in depth analyses of the precincts data to determine the actual out come of the Advisory Vote. This will be interesting from the stand point of how the ballot was laid out.

Will we be able to get a real sense of the balloting if a voter cast a “Yes” for one measure but then didn’t bother voting no on the other measures? That said it is quite apparent that there is no interest in forming a new City as we have pointed out numerous times here at The Beacon.

It will take 28 days from Election Day for the Los Angeles County Registrars office to certify the ballots and election. That will be truly when an accurate analysis can be done. In the meantime, I did have a chance to look at the precinct breakdown and it largely fell out the way many had expected.

The Tesoro community, for the most part, wants to annex into the City of Santa Clarita and that was an expected result. Of the two precincts, approximately 83% and 92% respectively voted in favor of annexation; 87% and 83% voted not to stay unincorporated.

Tesoro is within the sphere of influence for the City of Santa Clarita and the community leadership in Tesoro had already begun discussing annexation with City Hall prior to the November 3, 2009 election. They will annex into the City of Santa Clarita at some point; the only question is when.

The Castaic and Val Verde area was largely in favor of staying an official unincorporated community in Los Angeles County with the exception a portion of the Hasley Hill community. It appears that only part of the Hasley Hill community wants to annex to the City of Santa Clarita the rest of the area appears to be split with just a slight margin wanting to stay in the County.

The Hasley Hills community is split between two separate precincts. One precinct voted 67% in favor of annexing and 62% voted no to staying unincorporated. The other precinct appears to have voted 51.6% to stay in the County and was split on annexation. Again these are uncertified numbers.

The rest of the precincts in Castaic and Val Verde were decidedly in favor of staying in the County and not annexing to the City of Santa Clarita. This will pose an issue for the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) in that there is a definite “island” indicated in the Advisory Vote. That means there is a small area that wants one thing, annexation, surrounded by a larger area that wants another; staying in the County.

The Hasley Hills annexation application that the City has submitted to LAFCO may have become more complicated and it will be interesting to see how that is dealt with. Will the application be rejected because of this official vote? It certainly will through the petition for annexation into question as the official vote and the petitions do not appear to be in sync.

In reviewing the not yet certified precinct breakdown for the West Ranch communities there were some surprises. I was sure that the Sunset Pointe community might have leaned more towards annexation since there were some half hearted attempts to get traction on annexation over the years. But that wasn’t the case; the folks in Sunset Pointe appear to be evenly divided between staying in the County and joining the City.

Instead the Southern Oaks community appears to be more in favor of annexation into the City than staying in the County. Whereas most of Stevenson Ranch and Westridge are leaning towards staying in Los Angeles County, only by a slim margin, at this point with the exception of one precinct in Stevenson Ranch that was more favorable to annexing to the City.

I would be curious to know why the Southern Oaks area and the one precinct in Stevenson Ranch leaned towards annexation. There was a last minute effort to sway the vote towards annexation with an anonymous flyer that was placed in mailboxes urging a vote for Measure “C”, annexing into the City. That might have had an impact as it had some erroneous statements on it. Here is what it said:

PLEASE vote for Measure C on your ballot for our upcoming November 3^rd elections. Your vote counts and will tell the L.A. County officials that you support having our community negotiate an annexation into the City of Santa Clarita. We have been trying to do this for 13 years, and the County has been fighting us all the way. Your vote for “C” will help us to PROGREE, not digress.  

I think anonymous notes and comments are worthless. It would seem to me that if you don’t have the backbone to put your name behind your position or comments than you shouldn’t be making such bogus statements in the first place. There are too many of those types of cowards around town.

Claiming that the County is fighting the process shows that this person is clueless to the process! “Fighting for 13 years” also shows that this person is incapable of effecting change other than to whine about their view but not do much to participate in the process legitimately.

That flyer will no doubt be another fly in the ointment of this election.

On the Wednesday after the election there were members of the City of Santa Clarita leadership already complaining about the election. They were annoyed that the County sent out its regular annual informational booklet weeks before the election and pissed off that there were opinion pieces in favor of staying in the County.

Others, outside the City, were annoyed that the City placed annexation brochures at a community meeting in Tesoro and that The Signal appeared to be parroting City Hall with its editorial to influence the vote.

Ultimately the voters spoke and it appears, for now anyway, that there is no overwhelming desire for the communities west of I-5 to annex to the city. Rather the majority of those that voted want to stay as unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County.

So where does that leave us?

It means that there needs to be a shift in how the City of Santa Clarita, the County and the residents are looking at the future governance of the entire Santa Clarita Valley. The advisory vote should not be viewed as a victory nor a defeat but rather as a directional marker on the journey towards a goal; a valley that gets brought together because everyone has an opportunity to participate in the process and not because one entity or group thinks its best for all.

It’s about building relationships, being neighborly and respecting different opinions. That is what all of us should get out of this vote and what we need to do to start working on building bridges towards a brighter future for our valley.

My personal hope is that the citizens of the City will effect change in the spring City Council election and vote in some new members that will be able to show better leadership in building those bridges. The Santa Clarita City Council has grown stale and now needs some members changed out.

The Advisory Vote was not the final word on the future governance of the Santa Clarita Valley; it is in fact the beginning of a new dialogue that must take place before any change can happen in the future. That dialogue may ultimately culminate in a change that we can all rally behind.

I suspect that the dialogue will take several years to build to fruition; but it’s certainly true that good things come to those that wait!

Dave Bossert- Commentary  

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.