In a letter sent to The Beacon and other local media outlets, City Council candidate TimBen Boydston has written complaining about incorrect and misleading information coming from the City of Santa Clarita’s City Clerks office. The letter details apparently incorrect information disseminated to the Committee to Elect TimBen Boydston regarding campaign signage permitted in the City.

Mr. Boydston writes:  

As I write this I am profoundly disturbed and disappointed. Our campaign team, the Committee to Elect TimBen Boydston, has worked extremely hard to make sure that we were following all of the campaign rules. We spent a great deal of time talking to the City Clerk’s office to get instruction to be certain we followed all of the rules.

When we were first given the official “General Municipal Election Handbook for Candidates” we asked many questions. When further clarification was needed, we were told to set up a meeting with city’s Technology Services Manager Kevin Tonoian and our current City Clerk Sarah Gorman, who formerly worked as part of City Attorney Carl Newton’s firm. The meeting was set and several members of our campaign tem were present at the meeting.

These city employees explicitly stated that there was a size limit on signs placed within the City, as it says in our handbook under the section titled “Santa Clarita Municipal Code Sections Regulating Political Signs”, the limit is “12 square feet” in a commercial zone. I double confirmed this with the City Clerk in the presence of another challenger, David Gauny, when I ran into him in the Clerk’s office. My team spent a great deal of money on the 12 square foot signs that we had produced for placement on commercial property. If we had known that this was not the “real law” we would have made much bigger signs, as we have permission from several owners  to put up any size signs that we would want to.

Imagine our shock when we saw the incumbents’ 32 square foot signs going up everywhere.

But that shock was nothing compared to the response that we received when we brought this to our City Council’s attention. The City Attorney, in direct contradiction to the rules that we were given and had clarified, said that what we were told was not applicable because that would be a violation of free speech. My team, and any challenger’s team who relied upon the information provided by the city, is now way behind the incumbents’ in sign exposure and at a great disadvantage. 

It appears that our City Council and City attorney do not have a problem putting the challengers at an unfair disadvantage even if it includes deliberately misusing the campaign process. 

I beg of our guardians of the free press and defenders of our democracy make the people of Santa Clarita aware of this travesty.

Former Councilmember,

TimBen Boydston

Once again, the community is witnessing what appears to be more of the same type of underhanded manipulation of local politics by insiders at the City Hall. The question is will City voters continue with this status quo or are they finally fed up with politics as usual? We’ll all find out on April 13.