Parking Structure Parties, Firework Checkpoints

Tonight's was the last Santa Clarita City Council meeting before the summer recess, and it was a quick one. A $13M parking structure plan was approved for Old Town Newhall with very little debate. Discussion of the war memorial wall for Veterans Historical Plaza was deferred until after the recess. Interestingly, what ended up consuming a substantial portion of the meeting was discussion of how many loud and illegal fireworks went off in Santa Clarita over Independence Day. When Claritan historians look back on this meeting years from now, it shall be remembered as the one when Marsh McLean suggested setting up firework enforcement checkpoints. Let's do this one last recap, and then we'll all be excused from these efforts for over a month.

Rooftop Parties

Councilmember Marsha McLean said that, in light of recent events, she struggled to find the right words for tonight's invocation. She ended up paraphrasing the eulogy that President Obama delivered this morning, encouraging people to be open to truly listening to one another and understanding differences.

Following the pledge, Mayor Bob Kellar said that it was necessary to move Item 14 (Old Town Newhall/Laemmle parking structure) from the end of the meeting agenda to the very beginning. He didn't provide the reason at first, but immediately after the vote, Mayor Pro Tem Acosta left and Kellar explained that Acosta's mother had passed away just hours earlier. The schedule had been rearranged to let Acosta minimize his time away from his grieving family.

The 376-space parking structure project recommended by staff was about $12.5M (with a $1.3M contingency). There was an option of making the top level include an event space, which slightly affected the final price. The recommendation was quickly accepted by the council, but Councilmember McLean wanted a provision to regulate access to the top deck event area, especially late at night. She worried that people could "get up there and do whatever, after-hours." There were a few other concerns raised as well, such as falling off the roof. In response, City Manager Ken Striplin said that the top level wouldn't be a fully-enclosed structure so much as an event-ready venue; it had been difficult to picture what was meant by "event space on the top deck" prior to this clarification. He made assurances that all relevant laws would be enforced. As for the risk of roof-to-ground movements, he said, "People will jump off if they jump off." Striplin's matter-of-fact-ness can be utterly refreshing.  

The parking structure project was approved by everyone except Councilmember Laurene Weste, who recused herself due to the proximity of her property holdings to the project. 

Fireworks

There were only four speakers during public participation. Al Ferdman asked for more information on the former city employee who embezzled funds. "The public has a right to understand what transpired," he said, adding that he was interested in learning whether new preventative measures had been put into place. 

A man who lives in Valencia came up to complain about particularly loud illegal fireworks that went off in the streets this year. "This directly effects the quality of life," he said, hoping that offenders would be "fined to the maximum." 

Elaine Ballace's speech tonight was a little bit over the top, even by her own extraordinarily high standards. She said that life in Santa Clarita has been hard on her. "I came here under duress," she said, explaining that her move was prompted by the need to care for her elderly mother. "I begged her to leave," she continued. Her condemnations of the City of Santa Clarita were sweeping and damning: "Everybody lies here...is there no truth?" Then Ballace got around to the Dianne Van Hook restraining order--recall that the College of the Canyons Chancellor sought a restraining order against Ballace when Ballace made "threatening" remarks on a YouTube video about Measure E. Ballace asked of Van Hook, "She's an educator yet she wants to take away First and Second Amendment rights?" The most interesting claim was that Van Hook was actively engaging in friendly communication with Ballace while in court over the restraining order. Ballace said, "She came up to me during court and said, 'And you know there's a water bowl in the bathroom for your dog.' Is this a woman who's threatened?" Both Dianne Van Hook and Elaine Ballace have pushed the restraining order affair to absurdly dramatic heights.

The final speaker was Doug Fraser, who asked for more details about revisions planned for the already-recently-revised mobile home park ordinance.

City Manager Ken Striplin responded to the speakers in order. With regard to the embezzlement case, he said, "We have been very transparent from the beginning." Striplin predicted that the criminal investigation would be wrapping up this week and that results of a forensic audit would be available next week. 

Striplin's response on illegal fireworks was lengthier because the City Council was eager to chime in. He described proactive outreach activities that the Santa Clarita Sheriff's Department had undertaken in the week leading up to the Fourth of July. Areas with known firework offenders were visited and informed about firework regulations. On the actual night, there were about 300 phone calls complaining about fireworks, 0 arrests, 4 citations issued (about $1000 each), and 200 pounds of fireworks confiscated. This did not satisfy everyone. Councilmember Laurene Weste said that a broader, regional-scale solution was needed because it's much too easy for people to leave the city or county to obtain fireworks. It's then just a short drive back to the fire-prone SCV. Councilmember McLean thought the fireworks situation was out of hand. She had an idea. 

"Someone made a suggestion, and I'm wondering if it's a far-fetched one or not, about having checkpoints from a certain area where we know they go to buy the fireworks and catch them before they come into the city. And then I know we have checkpoints for driving under the influence; maybe we could have checkpoints around the Fourth of July for whether these things are in people's cars. And I know that I'm going to get banged for this, for, 'It's my right to do this!' and everything, but it's everybody else's right as well." 

Her suggestion was not eagerly seized upon by the other members of council. 

As for mobile home park ordinance revisions, Striplin said that there's going to be a 6-8 month process during which staff will try to address some of the unforeseen consequences that have arisen from the most recent ordinance.

Hotel Bills

The consent calendar wasn't particularly controversial. Councilmember TimBen Boydston asked about an item to cover Amgen Tour hotel room costs. He wondered if it was worth the $53,343.28 for rooms at the Hyatt. Jason Crawford said that, based on an economic analysis from a prior year, Santa Clarita could see benefits worth $1.9M from hosting a start and finish of the bicycle race. This was an estimate that included marketing and branding benefits.

Two items increased Santa Clarita's open space. One site proposed for purchase was 241 acres formerly slated for the Las Lomas development in the Newhall pass area. The other was 78 acres in Tapia Canyon, Castaic. Open space financial accountability panel member Wendy Langhans said that she was "over the moon" about the Las Lomas acquisition, which will provide important habitat for wildlife and contribute to regional connectivity. She mentioned an apparent error about land designations for the Tapia Canyon area, however, and Rick Gould said that there had been a labeling mistake and it would be fixed. The error didn't affect the purchase. 

Al Ferdman spoke on a landscaping item, asking whether lucrative contracts were worth it when the companies under contract couldn't even be bothered to remove dead plant material left from when drought restrictions were implemented.

Ultimately, the consent calendar passed with the recommended actions on all items. 

There were plans to have yet another discussion about the war memorial wall planned for Veterans Historical Plaza in Newhall. However, Councilmember TimBen Boydston suggested that it would be appropriate to continue this item to another date given the absence of Mayor Pro Tem Dante Acosta. Tragically, Acosta's son's name is one set to go on the memorial wall, so all the councilmembers agreed that it would be best to pick up this item again at the end of summer. The meeting ended and the next one is set for August 23rd. See you then.