Last year the City of Santa Clarita tried to annex the Valencia Commerce Center, which is in Castaic, by claiming a connection through a drainage ditch that ran under the 5 Freeway. At the time it seemed ridiculous to claim a connection essentially through a drainage pipe but then the whole Stonecrest annexation issue popped up a number of months ago.

What the Stonecrest annexation spotlighted was that the City of Santa Clarita could go down a dry river bed, bypassing the Stonecrest community, to annex the Cemex Mine. I started to think about that and realized that there is a river in West Ranch that crosses the 5 Freeway. That river starts high in the Santa Susana Mountains above Pico Canyon and makes itself known during heavy rainstorms. Last year it was a raging river during some of the worst storms in half a century and made its connection to the Santa Clara River known. Our river is actually a tributary to the mighty Santa Clara River that rages through the Santa Clarita Valley.

Although our river doesn’t currently have a name, I’m hoping that we can call it the West Ranch River, it nonetheless is a river bed and crosses under the Valencia Market Place, the 5 Freeway and cuts through the Vista Valencia Golf Course on its way to the Santa Clara River. This is the key to CalArts and the golf course annexing into the West Ranch area. Let’s face it, if the City of Santa Clarita has the option of going down the Santa Clara River bed to annex the Cemex mine then nobody should object to the West Ranch community going down a river bed to annex CalArts and the golf course.

CalArts will be the prize since the school pumps more than $33 million into the local economy annually. It is also an internationally known art institute which is just the kind of organization that would fit in nicely with our community. As for the golf course, well you just can’t have enough open spaces where folks can whack a small white ball towards a little hole in the ground.

Tomorrow, the Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich will be holding a press conference on the Old Road in the West Ranch community and I’m hoping that the official naming of our river will be part of that press event. Hopefully all the paperwork will have been completed by then. That will be the first step in being able to get this annexation going and we won’t have to deal with any pesky home owners, just a school and a business!

Dave Bossert
Commentator and Sometime Satirist