The Worst Fire
Season in a Century
With Independence Day drawing nearer, Mayor Pro Tem
Laurene Weste quoted Thomas Jefferson for the invocation and then spoke about
the great and glorious tradition that is Santa Clarita’s Fourth of July
Parade. This year’s theme, “The Winning
Spirit”, is sure to inspire Claritans valley-wide.
Presentations to the City Council followed; the bad
news came first. LA County Fire Chief
Daryl Osby spoke about the upcoming wildland fire season. He went on record with the prediction that
the worst fire season in a century awaits us. Fuel (or plants, as us non-fire people say)
will be reaching a critical combustion stage in July rather than in fall, as
would be expected in wetter years. He
stressed the importance of avoiding fireworks, clearing brush from around
homes, and following evacuation orders—if it should come to that.
Next came an update on the recently implemented “Drug-Free
Youth In Town” (DFYIT—“defy it”) program.
Students from seven junior high schools and six high schools volunteered
for the program. This involved a few
hours of community service (just over three on average, based on the summary
statistics), getting educated (learning things like drug “refusal skills”), and
undergoing random drug tests. Some 800
students signed up and, encouragingly, 100% of their drug tests were
negative. Then again, I harbor serious doubts
that the teenage heroin addicts most in need of such a program are very likely
to sign up when they know random testing awaits them.
Finally, Santa Clarita won the SCAG Compass
Blueprint Award for working with LA County to plan One Valley One Vision. Councilmember Marsha McLean said that when the
honor was initially bestowed, LA County reps took the award, so she had to
request this special presentation and an award to display at City Hall,
too. Typical LA County, jaded Claritans
muttered. (Not really. Well, maybe.)
Public Participation
Public Participation began with Alan Ferdman, who reminded us that he is running for City Council even though everybody already knows and we really doesn't need to hear the "in the interest of full disclosure" bit every single time. Anyhow, he was pleased that LA County's Clean
Water, Clean Beaches proposal has been set aside for a bit again, noting that the
plan is costly, controversial, and perhaps the result of interests more
political than environmental. Cam
Noltemeyer spoke next, asking about $210,000 that was approved to give to
Community Conservation Solutions. This
comes in addition to the approximately $900,000 that has been given to the group already for
outreach and education about water and chloride issues. She asked, essentially, what we’ve got to
show for the expenditure of over one-million dollars. A representative from Goodwill (I missed her
name) spoke about the new career center that will open tomorrow morning on
Lyons. Ron Haywood with SEIU spoke on
behalf of City employees, asking why (“with the City thriving as well as this
one is”) employees have to worry about the vesting schedule and the diminishment
of benefits for those hired recently.
Local punctuation enthusiast Steve Petzold asked to
hear more specifics about which chloride treatment option the City is
considering as the least onerous choice to meet mandates. “I
would like to see more leadership,” he said.
Finally, Alan Cameron used his sonorous voice to mask the fact that his
predictions about chloride treatment mandates weren’t as rock solid as he seemed to think. “We are going to win this
chloride situation […] it is inexorable that we’re going to win.” He cited some recent legal cases and
predicted the State would relax chloride standards if a lawsuit forced them to
pay for the cost of treatment.
From the Dais
Most of the updates from members of Council were the
same old thing…this event was a success, this other event is coming up, do
these really obvious things to make your summer safer, etc. There were two exceptions.
First, Councilmember TimBen Boydston said that he
was shocked that the Castaic Lake Water Agency’s Dan Masnada would be so
cavalier as to claim Santa Clarita has water in abundance, so much so that we
could tap the local aquifer to meet the provisions of one of the chloride
treatment plans without ill effects to current residents or new growth. Second, Mayor Bob Kellar asked Mike Murphy to
come up and describe the lobbying that Murphy, Kellar, and Weste conducted in
Washington, D.C. last week regarding Cemex mining. They met with representatives from the offices
of Senators Boxer and Feinstein along with several members of the House. Boxer introduced bill S771 to “resolve the
now 14-year-old dispute” (yes, it’s been that long). Murphy went to some pains to express how
sincerely Congressman Buck McKeon supported the bill despite the fact that he
would introduce no companion legislation himself, given the House’s rule
against earmarks. It wasn’t terribly
convincing. In short, Murphy said
conversations were had, and there might be a hearing for S771 in the late summer or fall, but
as of yet, nothing concrete (get it?) has been accomplished.
By 7:13, we finally got to the Consent Calendar.
The
Contentious Raises
Mayor Kellar did an awful job of organizing the
discussion of tonight’s consent calendar.
By having everyone from the public give comments on every item all at
once (rather than on an item-by-item basis), he ensured that the issues got
muddled. Then everything was brought up again
as the city manager responded, then items were brought up a third time as the
council members commented. It was a
mess.
With regard to the City budget and several specific
projects, Cam Noltemeyer expressed unease over how freely funds were borrowed
and transferred from once district or account to another. She wondered about who benefits and who pays. (City Manager Ken Striplin would respond that
all of the City’s budget policies were legal, prudent, and transparent, even if
they look convoluted at times. Trust us,
to paraphrase.) Apart from the 2013-14
budget, the consent calendar also included items for a substantial bridge
widening, beautification of the Sand Canyon gateway, street improvements and
maintenance, and improved parking for the Valencia Library.
However, council member compensation drew the most
attention. Tonight, all members but
Boydston voted for a 6% pay raise for the next council term. Boydston said it would be nobler to say "no" to
getting more. He advocated being a model of restraint. Alan Cameron, during
public comments, disagreed. He said the
Council is underpaid for the work they do, and better pay would allow more
people to afford the time to serve on council.
Cameron used the initial unpopularity of women’s suffrage as an analogy with which to parallel the unpopular—but justified, in his mind—idea of supporting a raise. It was a stupid analogy, but his deep,
booming voice concealed this.
Councilmember Marsha McLean sounded a bit emotional
as she tried to justify the raise which, as City Manager Ken Striplin pointed
out, could have been as much as 10% instead of 6%. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but now I
have to,” she said, when Boydston finished his remarks in favor of no
raise. She explained how she spends at
least 40 hours a week on council business, and her take-home pay is $1400 per
month. That’s $8.70 an hour, and she
hoped no one would deny her or her fellow members marginally more than
that. As stated, the raise passed with
everyone’s affirmative vote but Boydston’s.
Lyons Corridor
The final item of the night was a rather drawn-out
discussion of the future of Lyons Avenue.
The Lyons Corridor Plan anticipates the growth and changes outlined in
the General Plan (OVOV), and directs growth and (re-)development to follow
certain guidelines. There is an emphasis
on moving storefronts to the sidewalks, not behind parking areas. Architectural styles are Victorian and Crafstman, but diversity is encouraged. Walkability is stressed, and there are
incentives to encourage businesses to invest in changing their facades and the
like.
The one point most people argued with was an
incentive of 20% reduced parking requirements if a business were to
dramatically change its structure in accordance with plan guidelines. People wondered why it would be worthwhile to
reduce the number of customers that a business’ lot could accommodate.
Councilmember McLean, the perpetual micro-manager,
wanted to have an option to review essentially all architectural changes, but
she relented and agreed to only review the major ones. Councilmember TimBen Boydston squandered 10
minutes talking about traffic flow grades and how increased development on
Lyons would affect them, ignoring the fact that the changes laid out were done
so only to be consistent with the master plan.
Eventually, Mayor Kellar interrupted him to say that they couldn’t
change or undo a major part of One Valley One Vision that night, and Ferry
pushed forward a motion that effectively ended the discussion. Boydston was the only member who voted “no”
on the plan, noting serious concerns about traffic and environmental effects.
[1]Here's the agenda.
2 comments:
This is Allan Cameron. Several aspects of the opinion dominated "report" on what actually occurred during the televised City Council meeting will benefit from clarification.
Perhaps the writer of these efforts may wish to get to the essence of this issue, since it has such a significant and negative effect on all of Santa Clarita.
What happened this past week, which was the subject of one of the brief comments I made to the Council (and the public) is critical, and is as follows.
On Wednesday, June 19, a meeting of our "local" Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District was actually held in Santa Clarita, rather than in Whittier where 90 percent of these meeting usually happen.
During this meeting, a very interesting woman named Betty Arenson and I both brought an issue of extreme importance to the attention of the public.
This is the fact that a lawsuit was filed against the State of California by our very own "local" Sanitation District some three and one half years ago. Since that initial filing NOT A SINGLE COMMUNICATION about the progress of that suit has been shared with the Directors of the District, much less the local public which is actually paying for the lawsuit.
The goal of the lawsuit against the State has mega-hundred million dollar significance for all of us. If successful, the mega-hundred million dollar cost of the "Chloride" scam would no longer be paid just by the SCV, but by the entire State.
When the head bureaucrat of the Sanitation District was asked if her agency would finally tell the Directors and (hopefully) the "Billpayers" about this 3.5 year old lawsuit, she said yes.
She also said something astounding.
(This electronic format would not allow the rest of the facts about how we can save hundreds of millions of local dollars to be published. Call me at 818-634-8669 for the rest of the fascinating facts.)
By the way, to whomever it is that generates this "thing". Who are you? Please identify yourself, by name. If you are reluctant to do so, then please call me with a response to this most simple and basic of requests. You, of course, have both MY name, and my telephone number.
God will not have her work made manifest by cowards.
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