Members of the Castaic and West Ranch Town Councils met with Mayor Marsha McLean and other City officials on Tuesday afternoon February 27 to discuss the future of the Santa Clarita Valley. The meeting was initiated by the joint Castaic/West Ranch Town Council governmental status group.
There were several topics on the agenda including an update on the working relationship of the two Town Councils. City officials were informed that the Castaic and West Ranch Town Councils are working together and that they are looking at all the options regarding governmental status in a logical and systematic way. The options include annexation, incorporation or remaining in the County possibly as a community services district or “CSD”.
The group also discussed the status of the Initial Feasibility Analysis. The purpose of the IFA report, which is being funded by Supervisor Antonovich, has two goals; 1) verification as to whether the un-incorporated communities can or can not have incorporation as an option and 2) the exact tax revenue number being generated by the area we designated on a boundary map. That revenue number will be valuable in regards to any of the options available to our community.
The Town Members were also happy to except the funding the City Council authorized to do a Comparative Study of Options under the similar terms to that of the County funded IFA. It was agreed that the comparative study would be done concurrent to the IFA but possibly by a separate consultant. Both reports were to take 3-5 months to complete.
There was a desire on the part of the City to discuss timelines but this was declined by the Town Council members as being premature. The current focus for the Town Councils was getting the reports completed as this would garner valuable information that would have application to any of the options that are currently available to the community.
Another agenda item was the planned vote at the Santa Clarita City Council meeting on Tuesday night of the proposed change in the Annexation Initiative Policy. The Annexation Initiation Policy identifies the circumstances in which the City may pursue a request for an annexation. The policy establishes basic criteria for communities who wish to request annexation.
The Change was to lower the threshold from 60% to a majority of residents and contained a provision that if 5% of registered voters in a community seek annexation, the City will survey the community to determine the level of support for annexation. If a majority of responding residents and/or property owners support annexation, the City may then choose to pursue annexation.
Town Council members asked that the City Council not approve this change but rather table the item for a number of months while the reports were being completed. The argument was that although the proposed change would have little material effect it would have a preserved effect on the community. The perception would be that the City was becoming more aggressive in thwarting the self-determination process. It initially appeared that City and Town Council officials agreed to disagree on this point but that there would be comments by Town Council members at the City Council meeting later that night.
The meeting ended on a high note with West Ranch Town Council handing Mayor McLean a letter indicating that the West Ranch Town Council had unanimously approved the proposed plan for the Homeless Winter Shelter. All agreed that the meeting was a consolatory gathering with a friendly atmosphere and that plans would be made to reconvene at a later date.