The Santa Clarita City Council is a group of five people whose roles are essentially identical on paper. In practice: not so much. This point was made abundantly clear by Mayor Marsha McLean when it came time to allot committee appointments this evening. Her seniority by title (mayor) and years served (since 2002) led her to self-affirm certain privileges, like taking nearly twice as many committee seats as newish Councilmember Dante Acosta. It was a big powerplay for little practical gain apart from further underscoring the "us" (Acosta, Kellar, McLean, Weste) versus "them" (well, "him", Boydston) dynamic of the City Council.
Unanswered Prayer
Councilmember Dante Acosta opened the meeting with a prayer: "Help us work together for the good of all concerned. We are of diverse opinion here, and yet we wish to reach agreements satisfactory to all. Please bless our deliberations and bring us success this evening. Amen." Several members of the audience amen-ed in response. Many were parents of the Santa Clarita Christian School girls' volleyball team, which became CIF champion. Acosta's own daughter was team co-captain last year, so he was thrilled to announce their accomplishment and call them forward for certificates and photos with the council. The audience size was more than halved when the girls and their parents left immediately thereafter.
A presentation from the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Committee came next. Don Fleming provided some introductory fluff (public-private partnership, never been stronger, 38 board members, blah blah blah) and introduced Holly Schroeder, President and CEO of the SCVEDC, to describe the past year. She said business attraction was challenged by a lack of available space but looked forward to the construction of "sorely needed" new industrial space. The SCVEDC trademarked the tagline "Still golden." (I was surprised one of our many senior living communities didn't grab that inspiring slogan first.) Her speech was at times vague, like when she remarked, "We focused our efforts increasingly and strategically on our target business clusters." All in all, it's safe to conclude that the SCVEDC did some business-y stuff in 2014 and will do even more in 2015. The City Council--and most especially Mayor Pro Tem Bob Kellar--was pleased.
Tagwell Haunts Council
Elaine Ballace, who regularly speaks out against mobile home park rent increases, addressed the issue in a new way tonight. After staff advised her to speak to the councilmembers directly, she called all of them three times. Only Boydston and McLean replied, so she went pretty easy on them, despite disagreeing with Boydston's contention that Santa Monica faces issues with rent control. Her attacks on the others were crafted based on the biographies posted on the City website. Ballace called out Kellar for claiming he's "available" to residents when he wouldn't even take her call. She said Weste claims to look out for the dignity of seniors and other residents, but asked how they can have dignity if they can't afford to keep their homes. Acosta's biography alludes to his being an actor. She said he has no IMDB credits (a friend of hers looked it up, she explained) and asked how the people of SCV can believe in him when "you mean to tell me you couldn't find one producer in Hollywood to believe in you?" Ballace herself has several credits on IMDB, including "wedding guest" in Robinhood: Men in Tights and "background inmate" in Jailbait.
Steve Petzold spoke next, thanking the City for opening up East Walkjer Ranch for a disc golf tournament. He then asked why the Sheriff's Department didn't get the word out about the tragic disappearance and death of the little girl from Newhall to the community more immediately than they did--several hours lapsed between when they and the community at large found out.
"Is there a George Tagwell out there?" asked Mayor McLean. He had apparently left a comment card but elected not to speak, much to the delight of Santa Clarita Community Facebook users in the audience. They knew the name to be from a suspicious account set up to support installation of digital billboards when Measure S was in contention. Thus, McLean's question of "is there a George Tagwell out there?" was more apt than she may have known.
Finally, Cam Noltemeyer spoke about an important supplementary EIR pertaining to deep-well chloride disposal in Santa Clarita. She said the supplement came out as a response to SCOPE pointing out that the original site for the wells fell under a conservation easement. The new site would be an undeveloped area of Tournament Players Club Golf Course. Noltemeyer was outraged that this site would endure months of 24-hour drilling of test wells and another half-year or more of continuous drilling for the actual wells.
City Manager Ken Striplin responded to a couple of speakers. He noted that the City Council has not yet had a chance to weigh in on the proposed mobile home park ordinance and revisions. He added that a minimum 3% rent increase each year is already on the books, so inclusion of this term in the proposed ordinance would not be a novel policy. He then addressed Petzold's critique of the Sheriff's Department, saying they were too busy investigating the disappearance of the infant to release the information immediately.
No on Trains and Mining, Yes on Post Offices
Councilmember Boydston and Mayor McLean both have eyes on "the train", hoping to keep high-speed rail from bulldozing through any sensitive part of the city. Councilmember Weste and Mayor Pro Tem Kellar, meanwhile, are still trying to work out a solution to CEMEX mining. Weste said Congressman Knight is making it a top issue. (So said McKeon, battle-weary Claritans thought.) Councilmember Acosta described a recent government conference he attended and reminded residents that even when not at City Hall, "We're out there workin', workin' hard for you." Mayor McLean closed councilmember updates by asking for Claritans to contact the US Postal Service and encourage them to keep an office in Newhall, ideally near the one they recently vacated for a site in Stevenson Ranch. My grandma strongly agrees with McLean, for what it's worth.
Olsen's Appeal
Per usual, the consent calendar was full of items relating to transportation and construction contracts. Cam Noltemeyer spoke on Item 7, which approved the final tract map for Five Knolls. She opposed the development, which she felt gives the public little benefit from the "destruction derby." Open space preservation along the Santa Clara River was essential, she said. Councilmember Boydston had to recuse himself from voting on Item 8, which recommended arts and community service grants to many groups, including his Canyon Theatre Guild.
Item 10 required preparation of a list of local appointments. This perfunctory task triggered one of the more contentious discussions of the evening. Julie Olsen asked that the appointment for the North County Transportation Coalition be tabled/reconsidered. Arthur Sohikian, who was hired to lobby for digital billboards along freeways, currently serves on this coalition. She argued that a better representative would be Moazzem Chowdhury or David Barlavi, both of whom are heavily involved in the community. This item wasn't technically the proper place to discuss such a change, but Councilmember TimBen Boydston was sympathetic to her request for reconsideration and asked City Attorney Montes if it could be discussed under committee appointments--Item 14 under "New Business." After some prodding, Montes agreed the appointment could be discussed.
And once the consent calendar was approved with the recommended actions, that's the very item the City Council tackled.
Acosta's Long Game
The mayoral rotation brings with it customary transitions in service on committees. The mayor and mayor pro tem usually serve on the key ones, and the many other appointments are shuffled around as needed. Mayor McLean began by reading the committees and the councilmembers set to serve on them. There was a brief discussion of Arthur Sohikian serving on North County Transportation Coalition, but it was clear that he had the full support of Kellar and Weste, so a change in appointment as brought up by Boydston wouldn't be discussed. Boydston would, however, vote "no" on confirming that particular appointment.
Mayor McLean was set to serve on the most committees at 9 or 10--depending on if Eco-Rapid Transit was counted since the City's not a supporting member any longer. Weste would have 9, Kellar 8, Boydston 6, and Acosta 4. Boydston pointed out that it would be fairer to have everyone serve on 7, with the mayor taking 8. The rest of the discussion was spent with him trying to get more committees for Acosta by asking others to give some up. In response, the mayor made a case that her seniority mattered and she had earned her committee appointments. I'd work this out in narrative form, but here are bits and pieces raw, presented in chronological order.
ACOSTA: "I have four committee assignments, and I'd like to, you know, participate in more. [...] I think, uh, Mayor, that puts you up to ten committees at this point."
MCLEAN (interrupting): "Not...I'm going to answer that after we discuss it because you keep throwing around that I have ten committees and I don't really." [...]
BOYDSTON: "When you've been around a long time, then you get to, you know, you get to play in the sandbox a lot more. You get to make decisions a lot more. And I don't think that it's fair, and I don't think that it's right. [...] It goes to the mayorship as well. You all know I've been here for four years serving on the council with three of you in the past, but when my supposed "turn" [air quotes] came up, it was never even discussed. [...] This lop-sidedness where certain councilmembers seem to be more equal than other councilmembers is nonsense." [...]
MCLEAN: "Everybody likes to throw out that I have a large number. However, now as mayor, there's two that I have to be on as mayor and one does not meet, and um, I actually have six if you take a look at those. We all have different avenues of interest and such, and while it's nice to want to just divide them up, some of us have been serving and serving well, serving this council well, and not everyone can have everything they want. It has been the precedent in the past of the mayor being able to select the committees, and there's been some discussion and some changes are made. However, most of the times it's been respected...except for lately. And, taking committees away from people who really wish to remain on it, it just doesn't seem correct at this point in time. [...to Acosta:] You took SCAG away from me and I would like you to not take the League away from me." [...]
BOYDSTON: "As I recollect traditionally, here in the City of Santa Clarita, when a council person is newly elected, they are given their choice of the people they would like to have on, um, the commissions, and as I recollect, you didn't feel that that was an important and necessary thing to allow me to have my first choice on the commissions. That's the first time that's ever happened in the history of Santa Clarita."
MCLEAN: "There may be an opportunity for him [Acosta] to move up."
I'll stop there. In addition to these remarks, Boydston also talked about serving on the sanitation district, but Kellar called him a "loose canon" whom he said couldn't be trusted to properly represent the City. Acosta got the public safety committee seat from Kellar, but things stayed largely the same otherwise apart from alternate spots: it was a clear victory for the status quo and seniority. Voting was a bit confused because there was a substitute motion made in the midst of trying to shut up Boydston, who went on for quite a while, but all was approved in the end.
Interestingly, Acosta had an ask-then-retreat strategy throughout. He stated that he wanted more appointments, and he even named the three big ones he was after. However, so much of what he said was couched in the language of acquiescence or apology--he's the new kid on the block; with all due respect; "that's fine"; etc. It was his way of showing that he wants to be an active councilmember, but he is always ready to defer to the seniority of the others. Basically, I read this as Acosta reaching out to say, "I'm one of you." Indeed, it seemed Boydston was pushing harder for Acosta appointments than Acosta himself. Not to be too speculative, but I daresay we'll accordingly see a Mayor Pro Tem Acosta before we see a Mayor Pro Tem Boydston.
The meeting ended shortly after Stacy Fortner came forward for the second round of public participation. She said she had intended to take a new approach with the council, being respectful, dispassionate, and reserved. However, she became emotional as she sincerely asked the councilmembers to stop their negativity, pettiness, and fighting. "It's hard to listen to you, Mr. Kellar," she said of the mayor pro tem in particular. Kellar himself got a bit worked up as he responded, saying that speaking his mind is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't proposition. Adjournment came at 7:55.
[1]Enjoy the agenda. Really, do.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Old Woes in the New Year
It's been a while since the last Santa Clarita City Council meeting, but things picked up right where they left off.[1] Indeed, all of 2014's issues are now issues in 2015. Mobile home park rents? Still a thing. Advertising and signs in public spaces? Still a thing. Chiquita Canyon Landfill? Now an even bigger thing. The present looks very much like the past--some people are just sitting in different chairs now.
Great Men and Great Works
To kick off the evening, Councilmember Laurene Weste delivered one of her most puzzling invocations yet. She alluded to the approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but then waxed abstract, talking about America's various other "great men." She described how Teddy Roosevelt saved a lot of wilderness acreage. She mentioned Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She even detailed Franklin Roosevelt's hopes for the social security system. And then she got to King ("who was also a great man") and civil rights and such. And there, the curious journey ended.
There was but one award to be received this evening, and it came from the august stewards of the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association. They declared the Newhall Roundabout to be the project of the year. Mayor Marsha McLean went so far as to say that it has helped rejuvenate Old Town Newhall. So the next time you drive around that small, circular bit of road, know that it's an award-winning small, circular bit of road.
Public Participation
During the first bout of public participation, several speakers addressed mobile home park rents. The City's draft ordinance calls for annual rent increases of at least 3% and no more than 6%. The 3% floor has many residents upset because they live on fixed incomes that don't necessarily grow as quickly as their rents will. Doug Fraser spoke, per usual, but the most fiery remarks came from a woman speaking on behalf of her mother and seniors: "I think you all should be appalled at your behavior." She went on to say that the city councilmembers should step down if they won't stand up for residents, and she attacked City Manager Ken Striplin for collecting a substantial income while not doing more for mobile home park residents.
The owner of Fiesta Auto Insurance came up to express his dismay that the City won't allow his mascot--a person in a crow suit--to stand on the curb and advertise insurance. You may have seen the Fiesta bird:
Dennis Conn, a man we might describe as a "colorful local personality/aspiring politician", rose to ramble. He spent a while describing how his arms were hurt in a bicycling accident, his visions for the future, and his strategy for effecting change, using just one word at a time.
Steve Lee and Cam Noltemeyer spoke about Chiquita Canyon Landfill, which will become the biggest landfill operation in the United States if the planned expansion is approved. Both implored the council to take a more active role opposing it. Noltemeyer said that Elsmere Canyon was outside of Santa Clarita's boundaries when McLean and others fought plans for a landfill there, so Chiquita should be no different.
The topic of the nation's largest landfill operating next door would seem to be the most important thing to address, but what really got to Mayor Pro Tem Bob Kellar was the story of Fiesta Auto Insurance being unable to advertise via bird costume. He asked that compromises be considered and help be offered. As for mobile home rents, City Manager Striplin said that the ordinance final draft will be presented to the council on February 24th. He said that there have been a number meetings to discuss the ordinance drafts, and that since mobile homes weren't on the agenda, the council couldn't really discuss rents at this evening's meeting. Mayor McLean seized on what Striplin said and suggested that people just needed to be informed about the process. To the contrary, it seems the residents are very much involved in the process and simply trying to stop some provisions (like the 3% annual rent increase) before they come to the council as a final draft.
The Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion was spoken of in mildly sympathetic terms. Striplin and McLean noted that a letter had been sent in response to the draft EIR for the project. The mayor explained, "I don't like landfills. I think landfills need to go away." She wished there were other viable options, but since there aren't, she concluded it's just an unfortunate situation without a clear solution. Councilmember TimBen Boydston asked if there could be another meeting to bring up concerns. City Attorney Joe Montes said these concerns could be communicated, but Chiquita would not be obligated to respond to them in writing.
After covering public participation, the city councilmembers shared news and updates. Several touched on Charlie Hebdo, and there were quite a few remembrances of recently deceased Claritans. The death of 98-year-old Melba Walker was particularly poignant. She was one of the children who lived in the cabins of Placerita Canyon and was truly a pioneer, as Councilmember Weste put it.
Consent Calendar
Nothing on the consent calendar prompted much in the way of support or protest. Cam Noltemeyer spoke on Item 5, which awarded a contract to prepare an EIR for a large mixed-use development in Canyon Country. A project at the site had been proposed before, and she felt they were recycling much of the old work, but Striplin informed her that the project was undergoing a complete, new evaluation.
Item 6 recommended that Accela, Inc., be awarded a contract to update permitting systems. Boydston was concerned there was no bidding process, but a member of staff assured him that other cities have been "very happy" with Accela.
Alan Ferdman questioned Item 7, in which staff recommended awarding a contract for a reserve study of the city's landscape maintenance district operations. About 1,200 acres are involved, and the study would be used for long-term financial planning. He thought it seemed somewhat redundant with other efforts, and Boydston pursued this notion in conversations with staff, but he was willing to vote for it in the end.
Finally, Jim Farley submitted a written comment expressing his approval of a switch to outdoor LED lighting along paseos in Northbridge.
In sum, the consent calendar passed with the recommended actions on all items.
Public Hearings
After a relatively routine annexation into a landscape maintenance district (protested by a routinely outraged Cam Noltemeyer, who was upset that developers vote to join the districts only to pass costs on to eventual residents), there was a very unnecessarily drawn-out discussion of the Soledad Canyon Road Corridor Plan. I can summarize the plan more succinctly than staff: the style will be the same, only possibly a bit better and more uniform. There was grand talk about "creat[ing] a clear identity" for Canyon Country and "rustic Californian" architectural style, but changes for new development aren't exactly sweeping.
Councilmember Boydston ruined an already over-wrought discussion by making some points about traffic on Soledad. He argued that the plan was based on certain traffic assumptions, and he spoke more generally about the sorry state of traffic congestion in Santa Clarita, predicting the eventual SFV-ification of SCV if something wasn't done about it. Mayor Pro Tem Kellar countered Boydston with a useless anecdote about how quickly he can get from point A to point B on Soledad, contending that it's better than it used to be. In the end, everyone voted for the corridor plan except Boydston, who felt it missed addressing some real issues.
Public Participation, cont.
Stacy Fortner brought up Chiquita Canyon Landfill again. She pointed out that Kellar showed more concern for the auto insurance mascot than the people of Val Verde. "They're not being heard," she argued. A couple from Val Verde also spoke, using a map, news stories, and statistics to build a case that the planned landfill expansion would harm residents and diminish quality of life valley-wide. Patti Sulpizio asked the council "to advocate for us" on the landfill, since it's within the city's sphere-of-influence. Overall, people just wanted the council to give the landfill expansion some consideration and discussion, which has been fairly minimal to date.
There was a bit of a discussion over a point Sulpizio brought up in regard to SCVTV. She recalled that it had run political ads for Measure S during council meeting broadcasts, and she asked if this was proper for a channel so heavily subsidized by the City of Santa Clarita. Boydston took up and pressed her points with City Attorney Joe Montes. Montes didn't see any overt wrong-doing, but he was reluctant to render a firm legal opinion without knowing more details. The meeting ended a bit after 8:30.
[1]Here's the agenda.
Great Men and Great Works
To kick off the evening, Councilmember Laurene Weste delivered one of her most puzzling invocations yet. She alluded to the approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but then waxed abstract, talking about America's various other "great men." She described how Teddy Roosevelt saved a lot of wilderness acreage. She mentioned Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She even detailed Franklin Roosevelt's hopes for the social security system. And then she got to King ("who was also a great man") and civil rights and such. And there, the curious journey ended.
There was but one award to be received this evening, and it came from the august stewards of the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association. They declared the Newhall Roundabout to be the project of the year. Mayor Marsha McLean went so far as to say that it has helped rejuvenate Old Town Newhall. So the next time you drive around that small, circular bit of road, know that it's an award-winning small, circular bit of road.
Public Participation
During the first bout of public participation, several speakers addressed mobile home park rents. The City's draft ordinance calls for annual rent increases of at least 3% and no more than 6%. The 3% floor has many residents upset because they live on fixed incomes that don't necessarily grow as quickly as their rents will. Doug Fraser spoke, per usual, but the most fiery remarks came from a woman speaking on behalf of her mother and seniors: "I think you all should be appalled at your behavior." She went on to say that the city councilmembers should step down if they won't stand up for residents, and she attacked City Manager Ken Striplin for collecting a substantial income while not doing more for mobile home park residents.
The owner of Fiesta Auto Insurance came up to express his dismay that the City won't allow his mascot--a person in a crow suit--to stand on the curb and advertise insurance. You may have seen the Fiesta bird:
City Manager Ken Striplin confirmed that these avian advertisers aren't allowed to roost on public sidewalks.
Dennis Conn, a man we might describe as a "colorful local personality/aspiring politician", rose to ramble. He spent a while describing how his arms were hurt in a bicycling accident, his visions for the future, and his strategy for effecting change, using just one word at a time.
Steve Lee and Cam Noltemeyer spoke about Chiquita Canyon Landfill, which will become the biggest landfill operation in the United States if the planned expansion is approved. Both implored the council to take a more active role opposing it. Noltemeyer said that Elsmere Canyon was outside of Santa Clarita's boundaries when McLean and others fought plans for a landfill there, so Chiquita should be no different.
The topic of the nation's largest landfill operating next door would seem to be the most important thing to address, but what really got to Mayor Pro Tem Bob Kellar was the story of Fiesta Auto Insurance being unable to advertise via bird costume. He asked that compromises be considered and help be offered. As for mobile home rents, City Manager Striplin said that the ordinance final draft will be presented to the council on February 24th. He said that there have been a number meetings to discuss the ordinance drafts, and that since mobile homes weren't on the agenda, the council couldn't really discuss rents at this evening's meeting. Mayor McLean seized on what Striplin said and suggested that people just needed to be informed about the process. To the contrary, it seems the residents are very much involved in the process and simply trying to stop some provisions (like the 3% annual rent increase) before they come to the council as a final draft.
The Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion was spoken of in mildly sympathetic terms. Striplin and McLean noted that a letter had been sent in response to the draft EIR for the project. The mayor explained, "I don't like landfills. I think landfills need to go away." She wished there were other viable options, but since there aren't, she concluded it's just an unfortunate situation without a clear solution. Councilmember TimBen Boydston asked if there could be another meeting to bring up concerns. City Attorney Joe Montes said these concerns could be communicated, but Chiquita would not be obligated to respond to them in writing.
After covering public participation, the city councilmembers shared news and updates. Several touched on Charlie Hebdo, and there were quite a few remembrances of recently deceased Claritans. The death of 98-year-old Melba Walker was particularly poignant. She was one of the children who lived in the cabins of Placerita Canyon and was truly a pioneer, as Councilmember Weste put it.
Consent Calendar
Nothing on the consent calendar prompted much in the way of support or protest. Cam Noltemeyer spoke on Item 5, which awarded a contract to prepare an EIR for a large mixed-use development in Canyon Country. A project at the site had been proposed before, and she felt they were recycling much of the old work, but Striplin informed her that the project was undergoing a complete, new evaluation.
Item 6 recommended that Accela, Inc., be awarded a contract to update permitting systems. Boydston was concerned there was no bidding process, but a member of staff assured him that other cities have been "very happy" with Accela.
Alan Ferdman questioned Item 7, in which staff recommended awarding a contract for a reserve study of the city's landscape maintenance district operations. About 1,200 acres are involved, and the study would be used for long-term financial planning. He thought it seemed somewhat redundant with other efforts, and Boydston pursued this notion in conversations with staff, but he was willing to vote for it in the end.
Finally, Jim Farley submitted a written comment expressing his approval of a switch to outdoor LED lighting along paseos in Northbridge.
In sum, the consent calendar passed with the recommended actions on all items.
Public Hearings
After a relatively routine annexation into a landscape maintenance district (protested by a routinely outraged Cam Noltemeyer, who was upset that developers vote to join the districts only to pass costs on to eventual residents), there was a very unnecessarily drawn-out discussion of the Soledad Canyon Road Corridor Plan. I can summarize the plan more succinctly than staff: the style will be the same, only possibly a bit better and more uniform. There was grand talk about "creat[ing] a clear identity" for Canyon Country and "rustic Californian" architectural style, but changes for new development aren't exactly sweeping.
Councilmember Boydston ruined an already over-wrought discussion by making some points about traffic on Soledad. He argued that the plan was based on certain traffic assumptions, and he spoke more generally about the sorry state of traffic congestion in Santa Clarita, predicting the eventual SFV-ification of SCV if something wasn't done about it. Mayor Pro Tem Kellar countered Boydston with a useless anecdote about how quickly he can get from point A to point B on Soledad, contending that it's better than it used to be. In the end, everyone voted for the corridor plan except Boydston, who felt it missed addressing some real issues.
Public Participation, cont.
Stacy Fortner brought up Chiquita Canyon Landfill again. She pointed out that Kellar showed more concern for the auto insurance mascot than the people of Val Verde. "They're not being heard," she argued. A couple from Val Verde also spoke, using a map, news stories, and statistics to build a case that the planned landfill expansion would harm residents and diminish quality of life valley-wide. Patti Sulpizio asked the council "to advocate for us" on the landfill, since it's within the city's sphere-of-influence. Overall, people just wanted the council to give the landfill expansion some consideration and discussion, which has been fairly minimal to date.
There was a bit of a discussion over a point Sulpizio brought up in regard to SCVTV. She recalled that it had run political ads for Measure S during council meeting broadcasts, and she asked if this was proper for a channel so heavily subsidized by the City of Santa Clarita. Boydston took up and pressed her points with City Attorney Joe Montes. Montes didn't see any overt wrong-doing, but he was reluctant to render a firm legal opinion without knowing more details. The meeting ended a bit after 8:30.
[1]Here's the agenda.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Why You Should Help Count SCV's Dinosaurs
Would you be interested in seeing some living,
breathing, flesh-and-blood dinosaurs? Well then you’re in luck, because
thousands of them call Santa Clarita home, and on Sunday, December 21st,
there will be a valley-wide census. We love our dinosaurs, and this count helps
us keep track of how their populations are doing year after year. If you’re feeling a bit
anxious about taking a dinosaur safari on your own, worry not: there will be
plenty of experts to guide you, and the dinos don’t bite—not often, at least.
*Regroup at lunch (typically at Tacos y Burritos el Pato, perhaps since it's named for a bird) to share findings.
*Take the rest of the day to do last-minute Christmas shopping or attend a holiday party, remarking to all who you encounter about the surprising abundance and diversity of dinosaurs in Santa Clarita.
I probably can’t sustain this come-watch-dinosaurs
pitch much longer without making a confession. I’m talking about birds, or
avian dinosaurs (things like T. rex
and Triceratops are classified as non-avian
dinosaurs). They’re the only dinos we have left, so we best keep an eye on them. One of our best means of doing so is the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count (CBC). This year marks the 115th
annual CBC, a massive effort that will span the Americas and enlist the help of well over 50,000 birders, ranging from amateur bird-watchers to professional ornithologists. Santa Clarita’s count is an invaluable part of the effort.
If counting birds is so awesome (it is), why tease with dinosaurs? Well, Santa Claritans have a miserable record of showing up for their own CBC, instead relying mostly on the efforts of birders who drive up from the Valley or LA. We've got great birds like bald eagles, greater roadrunners, phainopeplas, orange-crowned warblers, and red-naped sapsuckers, to name just a few. But this means little to most Claritans. So I'm unashamedly going the dinosaur route. The SCV CBC may be your best chance to give the whole family the priceless holiday magic that is encountering real life dinos.
Here's a simple but scientifically sound phylogeny/tree-of-life for Archosauria to prove my point. It shows that while not all dinosaurs are birds, all birds are dinosaurs.
Whether you call them birds or dinosaurs, there's no arguing that these counts are key to conservation. The nationwide dataset amassed since 1900 is enormous, and it allows for comprehensive analyses of the status of America's birds across space and time. But the counts are even useful at the local level. For example, we can say California quail are undergoing a statistically significant decline in Santa Clarita based on a 10-year time-series, shown below. Who doesn't love these anxious, talkative, crisply-attired little butterballs? And we know their decline is a mathematical trend, not merely an anecdote, so maybe it's time we start paying closer attention.
The total number of quail counted at each Santa Clarita Christmas Bird Count has declined from hundreds in early 2000s to dozens in recent years. Effort among years has remained nearly constant at about 50 hours of observation spread across the SCV.
If you don't know a goldfinch from a golden-crowned kinglet, you can still show up for the CBC and be a big help. Locals who can navigate Santa Clarita or keep tally of the birds people shout out are much beloved but in short supply. So mark your calendars for next Sunday. It's the day to count all the amazing dinosaurs flying around your home town.
Pertinent details:
*Meet at 7:00 am sharp on December 21, 2014 at Western Bagel (Kmart shopping center at Bouquet/Soledad).
*Ready yourself as you would for a day of
leisurely hiking: dress in layers, don hat, select boots or shoes that can get
some nature on them. Complete ensemble with water, sunblock, snacks. Binoculars ideal, but unaided eyes and ears work, too. If you can neither see nor hear, your enjoyment of this activity will be limited to the refreshment of strolling through nature on a brisk winter morning.
*Find a destination of your liking (Placerita? Bouquet Canyon? Castaic?), join the group, and carpool or caravan to site, taking notes on the identify and count of all birds observed.*Regroup at lunch (typically at Tacos y Burritos el Pato, perhaps since it's named for a bird) to share findings.
*Take the rest of the day to do last-minute Christmas shopping or attend a holiday party, remarking to all who you encounter about the surprising abundance and diversity of dinosaurs in Santa Clarita.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Weste the Silent replaced by McLean the Perplexed
Tonight's Santa Clarita City Council meeting saw some title shuffling[1]. Mayor Marsha McLean is in command once again, with Mayor Pro Tem Bob Kellar waiting in the wings. This largely ceremonial business demanded some 90 minutes of the evening, pushing the City Council meeting proper back to 6:30 pm. Once underway, there was some discussion of the final results of Measure S, acceptance of a gift of 10 acres to be preserved as open space, and a slew of announcements since the next meeting won't be held until 2015. Let's review.
Singing the Praises of Laurene the Silent
If Santa Clarita City Councilmembers bore sobriquets, Mayor Weste's would surely be Laurene the Silent. The most remarkable accomplishment of her fourth reign as mayor, by my reckoning, was complete avoidance of the billboard issue that so consumed the news and conversation this year. She recused her way out of the matter entirely. Nevertheless, people found plenty of reasons to laud her for the past year of service as mayor.
The ceremony kicked off with the musical stylings of Valencia High School's choir, singing a cappella. They belted out a couple of Christmas carols, one of which included some kid beatboxing, which I guess is still a thing. They ended with "Silent Night", which was well done and sufficiently moving to color Mayor Weste's voice with emotion as she recalled the year that was. She cited progress on the Canyon Country Community Center, the successful DFYIT program (youth anti-drug outreach), and work resolving CEMEX as some of her proudest accomplishments. She spoke for quite a while, remembering 2014 as thoroughly as she remembers Santa Clarita's departed souls during her frequent eulogies.
City Manager Ken Striplin spoke next. While the mayoral role is largely symbolic, he did point out that Mayor Weste had some extra work this year since she was the City's face of CEMEX opposition. This meant taking a 4:00 am drive to the airport for an important trip to Washington, D.C. "Do you know what it's like to feed horses at 3:00 am?" asked Weste when Striplin brought up the trip. Without missing a beat he said he'd heard all about it more than once. Laughter followed. Once Striplin had completed his comments, the following individuals/groups or their representatives recognized outgoing Mayor Weste: State Rep. Scott Wilk (there in person; he actually brought the wrong proclamation for Weste, joking he had grabbed the one meant to recognize Steve Petzold's ("Petz") 70th birthday in a few days--he then had to explain he was joking when someone said Petz, who was sitting in the audience, didn't look 70), Castaic Lake Water Agency, College of the Canyons, Rep. Buck McKeon (his representative explained that the flag Mayor Weste received was the US Congressman's last official public award before retiring from office), State Sen./US Rep.-Elect Steve Knight, State Sen. Fran Pavley, LA County Mayor/Sup. Mike Antonovich, William S. Hart School District, and Safe Action for the Environment. Most praised Weste for her commitment to growing open space and for opposing CEMEX mining in the eastern Santa Clarita Valley.
Her last action as mayor was handing over the gavel to the City Clerk, who then asked for nominations for mayor.
McLean and Kellar In, Boydston Left Out
Public participation preceded nominations for a new mayor of Santa Clarita. Steve Petzold and Patti Sulpizio both advocated for Boydston to serve as mayor. Their reasons were several. They explained that he has served on the council for some time but never in the mayoral capacity, he is deeply involved in the community with his work, he was aligned with the majority of the public's view during the contentious digital billboard debate, and he might not be reelected during the next go-around, whereas Mayor Pro Tem Marsha McLean has most of a 4-year term left to be mayor yet again. However, the council didn't discuss any of these points, instead unanimously electing Mayor Pro Tem Marsha McLean as the new mayor. This was expected. She received the gavel and applause.
After McLean read a speech about what the upcoming year would bring, presumably prepared by Gail Morgan and her minions, it was time to get Santa Clarita a mayor pro tem. Again, Petzold and Sulpizio asked the council to consider the merits of TimBen Boydston. And again, their pleas were rebuffed. Councilmember Dante Acosta made a motion for Bob Kellar to be mayor pro tem, despite the fact that Kellar was very recently mayor (2013). Again, there was no discussion, and again, the motion passed unanimously.
A Side Note on Rotations and Kellar's Flip-Flopping
Now, there is an unofficial rotation of the mayoral title among councilmembers. It's a title without much power, but the mayor gets to advocate/advance a special project (think "Mayor Dude" during Frank Ferry's term), runs the meetings, cuts the ribbons, and represents Santa Clarita at home and abroad. It doesn't make one's votes count more or give one immunity in elections (Laurie Ender lost her election even when she was mayor), but being mayor still matters somewhat. The rotation is a means of giving everyone a chance to assume the role and its additional responsibilities. Boydston has served for years on the Council and has never held the title, while conventional wisdom says Acosta is much too new (in his seat for mere months) and McLean, Weste, and Kellar have all been mayor multiple times. So it was Boydston's turn--unofficially, of course. That he wasn't made mayor pro tem was an unmistakable shunning of Boydston by the rest of the council. He is regularly the odd man out on votes, and here he was the odd man out yet again.
During her remarks, Patti Sulpizio tried to elicit some sympathy for Boydston from Bob Kellar. She said that Kellar has also been the odd man out before, as with votes pertaining to the library and the Newhall Memorial expansion, but he was still allowed to serve as mayor/mayor pro tem. Kellar also knows what it feels like to be skipped over during the mayoral rotation. Frank Ferry cut in front of him for mayor pro tem, and Kellar voted against Ferry, saying "I would prefer to go with the usual progression." In other words, Kellar was upset when he didn't get his turn, whether the concept of a rotation/turns was taken as official or not. Yet Kellar did the exact same thing to Boydston this evening that so upset him in December of 2011, the only difference being that he did not self-nominate. It seems he only wants to go with "the usual progression" when it brings him a mayoral title.
Cake Break
A spice cake and a chocolate cake were served after all of the mayoral pomp and circumstance. I chose the latter, a decision I do not regret.
Deaths, Events, Public Participation
For his invocation, Councilmember Boydston read from Isaiah on the topic of leadership far more Divine than the distinctly human leadership of the council. Weste and Boydston told Mayor McLean they'd need to discuss/abstain from votes on a few items, and we moved to public participation.
Patti Sulpizio rose to speak again. She explained she "wasn't prepared for what just happened," and deemed it "completely despicable" for Boydston to have been passed over. No offense to the speaker, but she was likely the only one surprised that the City Council chose Kellar over Boydston. A woman named Elaine (I missed her last name) spoke about mobile home rents, a matter to be discussed fully by the City Council early next year. Her mother lives in a mobile home community and is on a fixed income, so proposed minimum annual rent hikes are a real concern. She said she was particularly frustrated that she felt like she was doing staff members' jobs for them and not being adequately served. That is, she's had to do a lot of research and make a lot of phone calls on her own time.
Cam Noltemeyer brought up a small basket as a prop for her remarks. She said that she is deeply offended when she sees councilmembers on their phones at the dais instead of paying attention to public speakers, and she gave the City Clerk the basket as a receptacle for phones so that everyone may give their undivided attention. Noltemeyer suspected Weste and others were texting consultants during important council discussions and deliberations for advice or instruction. Finally, Steve Petzold spoke approvingly of the response he received when he filed an eService request pertaining to some street lights in his neighborhood.
City Manager Ken Striplin responded, saying that he appreciated praise for the eService program's responsiveness. The program has addressed 19,000 requests over the past year (that's over 50 requests a day). He also said discussions of rent and mobile home policy were premature, as the council has not yet formally considered ordinance changes. Additionally, Councilmember Weste and Mayor Pro Tem Kellar said they never used their phones during council meetings (Kellar leaves his in the car, he told an audience hopefully not comprising thieves). City Attorney Joe Montes said phone use would be allowed, but that anyone getting information influencing their decision would have to disclose it (or better yet, avoid it in the first place).
Committee reports and updates from the council spanned a variety of mostly dull topics. One highlight was the revelation that the Cowboy Festival found a home for next year in Hart Park and Old Town Newhall. Acosta and Weste remembered several recently deceased Claritans in whose names the meeting would adjourn. Mayor McLean advised audience members to watch out for an IRS phone scam, and she asked the lady who called her and left a scrambled message to call back, as she couldn't hear her name/number due to the poor quality of the recordning. In case you need reminding, Mayor McLean freely gives out her home number so that anyone may call her about City issues. "I'm in the phone book," she's often said, to which Claritan youth reply, "What's that?"
Consent and Dissent
The Consent Calendar mostly dealt with landscaping issues (beautification projects, landscape maintenance district contracts), about which speaker Alan Ferdman advised the City to make sure its getting its money's worth--he's seen many dead plants in medians lately.
Item 7 was the official declaration/certification of the Measure S vote, which revealed that the majority of Claritans have a distaste for digital billboards. Several speakers noted that it was a unique vote in many regards (went against the majority of the council, was put on the ballot by citizens, showed an unambiguous result to finally resolve the billboard debate, etc.). Most suspected a similar matter could be brought back a year from now, when it's legal to do so. Petzold hoped they might only propose digital billboards near voting precincts that weren't strongly opposed to them. Sulpizio asked for a round table discussion of digital billboards, and she asked the council to reverse ordinances that had zoned areas in anticipation of erecting digital billboards.
Here's a chart showing what made the Measure S vote unique in terms of numbers--a product of it falling with a midterm election and eliciting a surprising amount of community passion and involvement. To put it in words, 21,488 voters voted "no" on Measure S; this means 19% of all eligible voters opposed digital billboards. That's 1 in 5, far more than the 1 in 25 eligible voters, for example, who voted for Dante Acosta in 2014.
[Note that Santa Clarita wasn't a city when the vote for incorporation occurred, and I couldn't find the exact number of voters eligible to vote, so the estimated percentage of eligible voters voting in favor of it is an estimate based on the city population in 1989. All the other numbers come from votesantaclarita.com.]
This led to a rather tense discussion among the whole council. Mayor McLean contended that the Norland Road site that had been re-zoned from open space to accommodate a billboard wasn't "honest-to-goodness open space." (It might be helpful if Mayor McLean generates a map of the various grades of open space for future discussions--honest-to-goodness, not quite honest-to-goodness, not honest-to-goodness, etc.) Councilmember Weste added that the land in question hadn't been purchased with Open Space Preservation District funds. Councilmember Boydston countered that the land was originally going to be used by LA County as the site of a homeless shelter, but Weste had opposed this plan by saying that the area needed to be bought by the City and preserved as open space. All of this played out years ago and has been brought up many times. Councilmember Acosta even weighed in, saying that he knows "there doesn't seem to be an appetite" for digital billboards among Claritans. Nonetheless, he believes the land should be left zoned as is, and not revert back to open space, because the City needs all the options it can get as it considers a new billboard deal in a year or so. He also said the plot was so small no business could really build there anyhow, so it was going to be safe as open space for the time being, even if not officially designated as such. Essentially, Boydston pushed hard for the council to recognize that they had turned open space into a business zone, but Weste, McLean, and Acosta tried to say it was more complex than that.
Once this discussion ended, there was a similarly unproductive talk about landscape maintenance district planting policies. Boydston asked that no new plants be installed until the drought is over, but the rest of council seemed OK with installing drought-tolerant plants which they contended would not use much water and would give ratepayers of landscape maintenance districts some landscaping for their tax dollars.
Ultimately, the consent calendar passed with the recommended actions. Boydston dissented on the matter of installing landscaping, and both Boydston and Weste abstained from an item each, but this had no real effect.
Drainage Benefit Assessments: Controversial?
A public hearing on establishing a drainage benefit assessment area for the River Village community upset Cam Noltemeyer. She said these assessments are passed by developers before people move in, and these residents end up actually paying the assessments. Indeed, there was only one vote on this matter, and it came from the developer in favor of the assessment. But, as City Manager Ken Striplin explained, environmental impacts must be mitigated as a condition of development, and if the community-to-be weren't assessed, other Claritans would have to pick up the tab. Weste noted people can choose to live elsewhere if they don't wish to pay a drainage benefit assessment.
A Gift of Land, Acosta Doesn't Nominate Boydston a Second Time
A couple donated 10 acres of land near an existing area of Santa Clarita's open space, and it was graciously accepted. Weste called it a "remarkable gift", but Kellar abstained from voting because he said the donors were very good friends of his, whether that's an official conflict of interest or not.
Finally, Mayor McLean was automatically appointed to the LA County Sanitation District Board, a big appointment because it deals with the chloride issue that is costing Santa Clarita nine figures. The other member and an alternate needed to be nominated and confirmed. First, Cam Noltemeyer spoke, saying that no one on the board over past years (Weste and Kellar, especially) had really looked out for Santa Clarita and defended its best interest. After her comment, Mayor Pro Tem Kellar gave a long speech explaining that the City has done so, so much to look out for ratepayers in the unfair chloride battle, which mandates that we pay to treat chloride to a concentration that seems arbitrarily low.
Kellar said he would nominate TimBen Boydston, a passionate advocate for Santa Clarita on chloride matters, but he gave Boydston some patronizing marching orders to "not create havoc" and cooperate positively with other parties if he served. (This is actually why Kellar had been criticized by Noltemeyer--she felt he hadn't done enough to force hard discussions and create workable alternatives). It was a bit unclear if Kellar was nominating Boydston to be the other member or an alternate, but Acosta took over the floor again by nominating Weste to serve. Weste was approved, and then Acosta and Boydston tried to push the alternate spot on one another. Neither wanted it, Boydston explaining that it's an unsatisfying spot to occupy with no real power. In the end, Kellar was chosen to be alternate. This was another rejection of Boydston by the council at large, and Acosta couldn't quite fight back a satisfied smile as he helped orchestrate it--he'd worn the same smile when nominating Kellar instead of Boydston for mayor pro tem.
The Choice that Wasn't There
Al Ferdman gave the only closing public participation remark. He was far louder and, frankly, angrier than normal. He felt that re-zoning a chunk of open space to accommodate a billboard meant no parcel of open space was safe from being re-zoned on a whim to accommodate something more profitable. He made some good points, but the response was...odd.
Rather than discussing the ordinances that regulate how open space can or can't be re-zoned, Mayor McLean asked the City Manager to describe the options that had been on the ballot regarding billboards. Striplin looked utterly confused. Eventually, it was realized that McLean was talking about the original petitions against digital billboards, and she mistakenly believed signers had a choice to say they opposed the billboard deal or simply wanted to put it to a public vote. Having confused the issue with this discussion, the meeting ended.
[1]Here's the agenda.
Singing the Praises of Laurene the Silent
If Santa Clarita City Councilmembers bore sobriquets, Mayor Weste's would surely be Laurene the Silent. The most remarkable accomplishment of her fourth reign as mayor, by my reckoning, was complete avoidance of the billboard issue that so consumed the news and conversation this year. She recused her way out of the matter entirely. Nevertheless, people found plenty of reasons to laud her for the past year of service as mayor.
The ceremony kicked off with the musical stylings of Valencia High School's choir, singing a cappella. They belted out a couple of Christmas carols, one of which included some kid beatboxing, which I guess is still a thing. They ended with "Silent Night", which was well done and sufficiently moving to color Mayor Weste's voice with emotion as she recalled the year that was. She cited progress on the Canyon Country Community Center, the successful DFYIT program (youth anti-drug outreach), and work resolving CEMEX as some of her proudest accomplishments. She spoke for quite a while, remembering 2014 as thoroughly as she remembers Santa Clarita's departed souls during her frequent eulogies.
City Manager Ken Striplin spoke next. While the mayoral role is largely symbolic, he did point out that Mayor Weste had some extra work this year since she was the City's face of CEMEX opposition. This meant taking a 4:00 am drive to the airport for an important trip to Washington, D.C. "Do you know what it's like to feed horses at 3:00 am?" asked Weste when Striplin brought up the trip. Without missing a beat he said he'd heard all about it more than once. Laughter followed. Once Striplin had completed his comments, the following individuals/groups or their representatives recognized outgoing Mayor Weste: State Rep. Scott Wilk (there in person; he actually brought the wrong proclamation for Weste, joking he had grabbed the one meant to recognize Steve Petzold's ("Petz") 70th birthday in a few days--he then had to explain he was joking when someone said Petz, who was sitting in the audience, didn't look 70), Castaic Lake Water Agency, College of the Canyons, Rep. Buck McKeon (his representative explained that the flag Mayor Weste received was the US Congressman's last official public award before retiring from office), State Sen./US Rep.-Elect Steve Knight, State Sen. Fran Pavley, LA County Mayor/Sup. Mike Antonovich, William S. Hart School District, and Safe Action for the Environment. Most praised Weste for her commitment to growing open space and for opposing CEMEX mining in the eastern Santa Clarita Valley.
Her last action as mayor was handing over the gavel to the City Clerk, who then asked for nominations for mayor.
McLean and Kellar In, Boydston Left Out
Public participation preceded nominations for a new mayor of Santa Clarita. Steve Petzold and Patti Sulpizio both advocated for Boydston to serve as mayor. Their reasons were several. They explained that he has served on the council for some time but never in the mayoral capacity, he is deeply involved in the community with his work, he was aligned with the majority of the public's view during the contentious digital billboard debate, and he might not be reelected during the next go-around, whereas Mayor Pro Tem Marsha McLean has most of a 4-year term left to be mayor yet again. However, the council didn't discuss any of these points, instead unanimously electing Mayor Pro Tem Marsha McLean as the new mayor. This was expected. She received the gavel and applause.
After McLean read a speech about what the upcoming year would bring, presumably prepared by Gail Morgan and her minions, it was time to get Santa Clarita a mayor pro tem. Again, Petzold and Sulpizio asked the council to consider the merits of TimBen Boydston. And again, their pleas were rebuffed. Councilmember Dante Acosta made a motion for Bob Kellar to be mayor pro tem, despite the fact that Kellar was very recently mayor (2013). Again, there was no discussion, and again, the motion passed unanimously.
A Side Note on Rotations and Kellar's Flip-Flopping
Now, there is an unofficial rotation of the mayoral title among councilmembers. It's a title without much power, but the mayor gets to advocate/advance a special project (think "Mayor Dude" during Frank Ferry's term), runs the meetings, cuts the ribbons, and represents Santa Clarita at home and abroad. It doesn't make one's votes count more or give one immunity in elections (Laurie Ender lost her election even when she was mayor), but being mayor still matters somewhat. The rotation is a means of giving everyone a chance to assume the role and its additional responsibilities. Boydston has served for years on the Council and has never held the title, while conventional wisdom says Acosta is much too new (in his seat for mere months) and McLean, Weste, and Kellar have all been mayor multiple times. So it was Boydston's turn--unofficially, of course. That he wasn't made mayor pro tem was an unmistakable shunning of Boydston by the rest of the council. He is regularly the odd man out on votes, and here he was the odd man out yet again.
During her remarks, Patti Sulpizio tried to elicit some sympathy for Boydston from Bob Kellar. She said that Kellar has also been the odd man out before, as with votes pertaining to the library and the Newhall Memorial expansion, but he was still allowed to serve as mayor/mayor pro tem. Kellar also knows what it feels like to be skipped over during the mayoral rotation. Frank Ferry cut in front of him for mayor pro tem, and Kellar voted against Ferry, saying "I would prefer to go with the usual progression." In other words, Kellar was upset when he didn't get his turn, whether the concept of a rotation/turns was taken as official or not. Yet Kellar did the exact same thing to Boydston this evening that so upset him in December of 2011, the only difference being that he did not self-nominate. It seems he only wants to go with "the usual progression" when it brings him a mayoral title.
Cake Break
A spice cake and a chocolate cake were served after all of the mayoral pomp and circumstance. I chose the latter, a decision I do not regret.
Deaths, Events, Public Participation
For his invocation, Councilmember Boydston read from Isaiah on the topic of leadership far more Divine than the distinctly human leadership of the council. Weste and Boydston told Mayor McLean they'd need to discuss/abstain from votes on a few items, and we moved to public participation.
Patti Sulpizio rose to speak again. She explained she "wasn't prepared for what just happened," and deemed it "completely despicable" for Boydston to have been passed over. No offense to the speaker, but she was likely the only one surprised that the City Council chose Kellar over Boydston. A woman named Elaine (I missed her last name) spoke about mobile home rents, a matter to be discussed fully by the City Council early next year. Her mother lives in a mobile home community and is on a fixed income, so proposed minimum annual rent hikes are a real concern. She said she was particularly frustrated that she felt like she was doing staff members' jobs for them and not being adequately served. That is, she's had to do a lot of research and make a lot of phone calls on her own time.
Cam Noltemeyer brought up a small basket as a prop for her remarks. She said that she is deeply offended when she sees councilmembers on their phones at the dais instead of paying attention to public speakers, and she gave the City Clerk the basket as a receptacle for phones so that everyone may give their undivided attention. Noltemeyer suspected Weste and others were texting consultants during important council discussions and deliberations for advice or instruction. Finally, Steve Petzold spoke approvingly of the response he received when he filed an eService request pertaining to some street lights in his neighborhood.
City Manager Ken Striplin responded, saying that he appreciated praise for the eService program's responsiveness. The program has addressed 19,000 requests over the past year (that's over 50 requests a day). He also said discussions of rent and mobile home policy were premature, as the council has not yet formally considered ordinance changes. Additionally, Councilmember Weste and Mayor Pro Tem Kellar said they never used their phones during council meetings (Kellar leaves his in the car, he told an audience hopefully not comprising thieves). City Attorney Joe Montes said phone use would be allowed, but that anyone getting information influencing their decision would have to disclose it (or better yet, avoid it in the first place).
Committee reports and updates from the council spanned a variety of mostly dull topics. One highlight was the revelation that the Cowboy Festival found a home for next year in Hart Park and Old Town Newhall. Acosta and Weste remembered several recently deceased Claritans in whose names the meeting would adjourn. Mayor McLean advised audience members to watch out for an IRS phone scam, and she asked the lady who called her and left a scrambled message to call back, as she couldn't hear her name/number due to the poor quality of the recordning. In case you need reminding, Mayor McLean freely gives out her home number so that anyone may call her about City issues. "I'm in the phone book," she's often said, to which Claritan youth reply, "What's that?"
Consent and Dissent
The Consent Calendar mostly dealt with landscaping issues (beautification projects, landscape maintenance district contracts), about which speaker Alan Ferdman advised the City to make sure its getting its money's worth--he's seen many dead plants in medians lately.
Item 7 was the official declaration/certification of the Measure S vote, which revealed that the majority of Claritans have a distaste for digital billboards. Several speakers noted that it was a unique vote in many regards (went against the majority of the council, was put on the ballot by citizens, showed an unambiguous result to finally resolve the billboard debate, etc.). Most suspected a similar matter could be brought back a year from now, when it's legal to do so. Petzold hoped they might only propose digital billboards near voting precincts that weren't strongly opposed to them. Sulpizio asked for a round table discussion of digital billboards, and she asked the council to reverse ordinances that had zoned areas in anticipation of erecting digital billboards.
[Note that Santa Clarita wasn't a city when the vote for incorporation occurred, and I couldn't find the exact number of voters eligible to vote, so the estimated percentage of eligible voters voting in favor of it is an estimate based on the city population in 1989. All the other numbers come from votesantaclarita.com.]
This led to a rather tense discussion among the whole council. Mayor McLean contended that the Norland Road site that had been re-zoned from open space to accommodate a billboard wasn't "honest-to-goodness open space." (It might be helpful if Mayor McLean generates a map of the various grades of open space for future discussions--honest-to-goodness, not quite honest-to-goodness, not honest-to-goodness, etc.) Councilmember Weste added that the land in question hadn't been purchased with Open Space Preservation District funds. Councilmember Boydston countered that the land was originally going to be used by LA County as the site of a homeless shelter, but Weste had opposed this plan by saying that the area needed to be bought by the City and preserved as open space. All of this played out years ago and has been brought up many times. Councilmember Acosta even weighed in, saying that he knows "there doesn't seem to be an appetite" for digital billboards among Claritans. Nonetheless, he believes the land should be left zoned as is, and not revert back to open space, because the City needs all the options it can get as it considers a new billboard deal in a year or so. He also said the plot was so small no business could really build there anyhow, so it was going to be safe as open space for the time being, even if not officially designated as such. Essentially, Boydston pushed hard for the council to recognize that they had turned open space into a business zone, but Weste, McLean, and Acosta tried to say it was more complex than that.
Once this discussion ended, there was a similarly unproductive talk about landscape maintenance district planting policies. Boydston asked that no new plants be installed until the drought is over, but the rest of council seemed OK with installing drought-tolerant plants which they contended would not use much water and would give ratepayers of landscape maintenance districts some landscaping for their tax dollars.
Ultimately, the consent calendar passed with the recommended actions. Boydston dissented on the matter of installing landscaping, and both Boydston and Weste abstained from an item each, but this had no real effect.
Drainage Benefit Assessments: Controversial?
A public hearing on establishing a drainage benefit assessment area for the River Village community upset Cam Noltemeyer. She said these assessments are passed by developers before people move in, and these residents end up actually paying the assessments. Indeed, there was only one vote on this matter, and it came from the developer in favor of the assessment. But, as City Manager Ken Striplin explained, environmental impacts must be mitigated as a condition of development, and if the community-to-be weren't assessed, other Claritans would have to pick up the tab. Weste noted people can choose to live elsewhere if they don't wish to pay a drainage benefit assessment.
A Gift of Land, Acosta Doesn't Nominate Boydston a Second Time
A couple donated 10 acres of land near an existing area of Santa Clarita's open space, and it was graciously accepted. Weste called it a "remarkable gift", but Kellar abstained from voting because he said the donors were very good friends of his, whether that's an official conflict of interest or not.
Finally, Mayor McLean was automatically appointed to the LA County Sanitation District Board, a big appointment because it deals with the chloride issue that is costing Santa Clarita nine figures. The other member and an alternate needed to be nominated and confirmed. First, Cam Noltemeyer spoke, saying that no one on the board over past years (Weste and Kellar, especially) had really looked out for Santa Clarita and defended its best interest. After her comment, Mayor Pro Tem Kellar gave a long speech explaining that the City has done so, so much to look out for ratepayers in the unfair chloride battle, which mandates that we pay to treat chloride to a concentration that seems arbitrarily low.
Kellar said he would nominate TimBen Boydston, a passionate advocate for Santa Clarita on chloride matters, but he gave Boydston some patronizing marching orders to "not create havoc" and cooperate positively with other parties if he served. (This is actually why Kellar had been criticized by Noltemeyer--she felt he hadn't done enough to force hard discussions and create workable alternatives). It was a bit unclear if Kellar was nominating Boydston to be the other member or an alternate, but Acosta took over the floor again by nominating Weste to serve. Weste was approved, and then Acosta and Boydston tried to push the alternate spot on one another. Neither wanted it, Boydston explaining that it's an unsatisfying spot to occupy with no real power. In the end, Kellar was chosen to be alternate. This was another rejection of Boydston by the council at large, and Acosta couldn't quite fight back a satisfied smile as he helped orchestrate it--he'd worn the same smile when nominating Kellar instead of Boydston for mayor pro tem.
The Choice that Wasn't There
Al Ferdman gave the only closing public participation remark. He was far louder and, frankly, angrier than normal. He felt that re-zoning a chunk of open space to accommodate a billboard meant no parcel of open space was safe from being re-zoned on a whim to accommodate something more profitable. He made some good points, but the response was...odd.
Rather than discussing the ordinances that regulate how open space can or can't be re-zoned, Mayor McLean asked the City Manager to describe the options that had been on the ballot regarding billboards. Striplin looked utterly confused. Eventually, it was realized that McLean was talking about the original petitions against digital billboards, and she mistakenly believed signers had a choice to say they opposed the billboard deal or simply wanted to put it to a public vote. Having confused the issue with this discussion, the meeting ended.
[1]Here's the agenda.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
3% Rent Increases, 56% Billboard Rejection, 100% Senior Center Support
Tonight's City Council meeting stretched for a solid two hours, but so much went unsaid[1]. The hugely contentious billboard deal on the ballot mere weeks ago was already a non-issue. Apart from Councilmember TimBen Boydston, the Council acted like Measure S never even happened. Cam Noltemeyer made another plea for someone to say something, anything, about the Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion, but her demands were met with silence. Frustrating the most people was a lack of meaningful discussion about mobile home ordinance updates. The room was full of families upset at the proposed 3% minimum annual rent increase, but a discussion is on hold until draft language is formally presented in January. The Council always has a lot to say, just not necessarily on the topics people want to hear about.
A Poem, A Message
Mayor Pro Tem Marsa McLean read a poem called "The Thanksgiving Ghost" for tonight's invocation. It is an elaboration of the humorous premise that a ghost ate the missing Thanksgiving leftovers, not people. Here is the unattributed poem:
The last piece of apple pie is gone;/ How did it disappear?/ The bowl of delicious stuffing/ Has also vanished, I fear./ It happens each Thanksgiving,/ When leftover goodies flee,/ And each of us knows the responsible one/ Couldn't be you or me./ The only way it could happen/ Is readily diagnosed;/ It must be the crafty, incredibly sneaky,/ Still hungry Thanksgiving ghost."
The light-hearted rhymes did little to mask McLean's true, much more sinister message. Her not-so-subtle point made, the meeting continued.
Metro Love
There were just a couple of awards and recognitions tonight. The City recognized some deputies who had shown extraordinary bravery in a housefire, pulling a woman to safety.
Next, the City recognized LA Metro for doing, ostensibly, what LA Metro receives money to do--transportation stuff. Mayor Weste noted that Metro helped with the Newhall Roundabout, a project which has inexplicably won the 2014 Project of the Year from the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association. It was a real love-fest between the City and Metro, perhaps an apology that the Council didn't manage to pass the billboard deal that would have given Metro a new revenue stream.
Undo the Rezones, 3% Floor Unacceptable
Public participation this evening could be cleanly split into two categories, billboards and mobile home parks.
Steve Petzold addressed the defeat of Measure S, which would have added digital billboards along Santa Clarita freeways in exchange for removing some billboards in town. He joked, "I'm gonna take out all the things I was going to say about Metro" in light of the presentation that had just been made. He promised, "I don't hold any ill will," and asked the City Council to reverse the zoning amendments that had been made to accommodate planned digital billboards. Many others echoed his entreaty, noting that fully 21,488 Claritans had voted against digital billboards. By most standards, that's a bunch.
The first speaker on the topic of mobile home park ordinance changes was Concepcion Hernandez. She stood up from the audience and asked that Doug Fraser speak on her behalf, so he did. Her proxy said that the City was proposing that rents at mobile home parks would increase every year with a 3% floor and a 6% ceiling. The 3% floor seemed unfair because cost of living doesn't always increase by that much each year, yet park owners would know they were guaranteed at least a 3% increase in revenue from rents each year. Another Parklane Estates mobile home park resident asked people in the audience to raise their hand if they were there to protest the proposed ordinance, and dozens of hands shot straight up. The room was packed, and opposition was abundant.
One exception to comments on billboards and mobile home parks was a statement by Roger Herring. He described how various stakeholders and the City had been working on a project to address environmental problems in the Bouquet Canyon watershed, outside of the city proper. He was dismayed that the City had backed out on a funding plan because of concerns about new labor regulations and requirements. It wasn't a very clear comment unless you were familiar with the issue, which nobody but the City's Environmental Services Division seemed to be.
Responses and Non-Responses
City Manager Ken Striplin responded to the concerns of mobile home residents by saying that a draft ordinance would be presented next year, likely in January. The ordinance has been undergoing revision in a public process, but he hinted that it was unlikely the 3% floor on annual rent increases would be revised down to 0%, as many hoped. He said they have been trying to balance the needs of residents and park owners, and he noted that the loss of redevelopment and low-income housing funds complicate this realm of problems. In short, expect big, complicated meetings about mobile home matters in 2015.
City Attorney Joe Montes spoke about the Bouquet Canyon watershed project. It was his understanding that the City, which would pass-through funds from a granting agency to tackle the project--had offered to work on a smaller amount so that new regulations could be avoided. More discussion will ensue.
In light of a strong public vote against digital billboards and comments asking that rezoning be addressed, Councilmember TimBen Boydston asked if the billboard ordinance of interest could be added to the agenda for the next meeting. He needed two members of the City Council to support him, but no one said a word. Indeed, a community that voted against digital billboards will continue to have areas spot-zoned to accommodate them for the foreseeable future.
Death Abounds
It's been a while since the last City Council meeting, so there was a lot of eulogizing to be done. Notable Claritans like Henry Schultz and Robert Newhall Chesebrough III recently passed away and were remembered. Perhaps most notable was Gladys Laney, who lived her whole life within just a few blocks of Santa Clarita, witnessing the transformation of dusty proto-Santa Clarita to the city we know today. Mayor Weste recalled visiting her at work when she turned 100.
Santa Clarita's Legislative Platform and Einstein Academy
The consent calendar was mostly a dull mix of traffic and construction matters. Item 2 was of interest because it formalized Santa Clarita's positions on legislative issues for 2015. These included points like support for creating St. Francis Dam National Memorial, opposition to unfunded state mandates, and so on. Federal and State topics were addressed ("Yet a giant landfill in Castaic is somehow too far out-of-bounds and far-removed to talk about?" some might hypothetically wonder). McLean asked that one item, which largely opposed high-speed rail, be amended to include support for other consumer rail projects.
There was a somewhat related discussion of lobbyists, which the City was proposing to continue employing for matters related to Cemex and the like. Boydston wondered at their efficacy, and Kellar assured him they were important and effective in furthering Santa Clarita's agenda on a variety of fronts.
Item 8 formally denied the request of Albert Einstein Academy (AEA) to build and operate an elementary school at an office building in an industrial park. Alan Ferdman thought it was unfair that the school was being denied for not meeting standards that weren't actually in the code, so he supported the project. Mayor Pro Tem McLean, too, was supportive, asking for this item to undergo a separate vote so she could express her support. Ultimately, though, the consent calendar exclusive of Item 8 was approved with the recommended actions, and Item 8 received 3 yes votes (Acosta, Boydston, Kellar), 1 no vote (McLean) and 1 abstention (Weste).
Just before the vote, Mayor Weste spoke to explain why she had abstained last time on the AEA vote. She claimed she "never abstains," but was sympathetic to AEA because there hadn't been an appropriate solution or alternative to the project identified. She couldn't vote to satisfy all parties, so she had chosen not to vote at all. It was an odd mix of reasoning--part protest, part frustration, part symbolic--but it didn't exactly scream "leadership" as one might hope for from their mayor. She instructed staff to determine where schools can reasonably go if they disrupt neighborhoods, aren't compatible with industrial/business parks, and can't buy out whole shopping centers. It's a fair question, but probably answered better by policy than a technical solution to be uncovered by staff.
Senior Center Funded
Santa Clarita has a large population of senior citizens, and after LA County agreed to pony up over $3M to find, acquire, and build a new SCV Senior Center, the City voted to match it with $3M of its own. Councilmember Kellar explained more funds would be needed, but this was an adequate start. The approval was very popular with everyone in the audience and on the Council. Councilmember Boydston observed that it had made unlikely allies of Berta Gonzalez-Harper and Alan Ferdman, for instance. Mayor Weste said she was "very proud to see this day."
Closing Remarks
Those for whom there hadn't been time during the first bout of public participation were given a chance to speak at the end of the meeting. Cam Noltemeyer said the Council's refusal to discuss Measure S related zoning changes "shows your contempt for the community." She continued by demanding that Mayor Weste make a statement about the Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion, but was left unsatisfied.
Patti Sulpizio also expressed her deep disappointment at the lack of discussion about the remains of the billboard ordinance in the wak of Measure S's defeat. She then made a play at embarrassing the City Council by passing out copies of their norms--highlighted, no less--and asking that they abide by their own rules of conduct. She was particularly upset that no one had spoken up when Rick Green was very rude to Cam Noltemeyer in a highly personal comment from the previous meeting. Sulpizio then read a letter from David Barlavi, a leader of the campaign against Measure S. It was rather witty, asking that the City stop attracting "vulture-like" enterprises (Allvision, the red light camera operators, Cemex, etc.) to the valley.
There were many speaker cards that went unclaimed as most of the mobile home park residents had left by this point in the meeting. One woman remained to say "this is abominable" in response to a 3% floor on annual rent increases. Her mother, she explained, is on a fixed Social Security income increasing only 1% per year, so she wouldn't be able to keep up. The meeting ended with this and other matters unresolved.
[1]Here's the agenda, especially for you.
A Poem, A Message
Mayor Pro Tem Marsa McLean read a poem called "The Thanksgiving Ghost" for tonight's invocation. It is an elaboration of the humorous premise that a ghost ate the missing Thanksgiving leftovers, not people. Here is the unattributed poem:
The last piece of apple pie is gone;/ How did it disappear?/ The bowl of delicious stuffing/ Has also vanished, I fear./ It happens each Thanksgiving,/ When leftover goodies flee,/ And each of us knows the responsible one/ Couldn't be you or me./ The only way it could happen/ Is readily diagnosed;/ It must be the crafty, incredibly sneaky,/ Still hungry Thanksgiving ghost."
The light-hearted rhymes did little to mask McLean's true, much more sinister message. Her not-so-subtle point made, the meeting continued.
Metro Love
There were just a couple of awards and recognitions tonight. The City recognized some deputies who had shown extraordinary bravery in a housefire, pulling a woman to safety.
Next, the City recognized LA Metro for doing, ostensibly, what LA Metro receives money to do--transportation stuff. Mayor Weste noted that Metro helped with the Newhall Roundabout, a project which has inexplicably won the 2014 Project of the Year from the Southern California Chapter of the American Public Works Association. It was a real love-fest between the City and Metro, perhaps an apology that the Council didn't manage to pass the billboard deal that would have given Metro a new revenue stream.
Undo the Rezones, 3% Floor Unacceptable
Public participation this evening could be cleanly split into two categories, billboards and mobile home parks.
Steve Petzold addressed the defeat of Measure S, which would have added digital billboards along Santa Clarita freeways in exchange for removing some billboards in town. He joked, "I'm gonna take out all the things I was going to say about Metro" in light of the presentation that had just been made. He promised, "I don't hold any ill will," and asked the City Council to reverse the zoning amendments that had been made to accommodate planned digital billboards. Many others echoed his entreaty, noting that fully 21,488 Claritans had voted against digital billboards. By most standards, that's a bunch.
The first speaker on the topic of mobile home park ordinance changes was Concepcion Hernandez. She stood up from the audience and asked that Doug Fraser speak on her behalf, so he did. Her proxy said that the City was proposing that rents at mobile home parks would increase every year with a 3% floor and a 6% ceiling. The 3% floor seemed unfair because cost of living doesn't always increase by that much each year, yet park owners would know they were guaranteed at least a 3% increase in revenue from rents each year. Another Parklane Estates mobile home park resident asked people in the audience to raise their hand if they were there to protest the proposed ordinance, and dozens of hands shot straight up. The room was packed, and opposition was abundant.
One exception to comments on billboards and mobile home parks was a statement by Roger Herring. He described how various stakeholders and the City had been working on a project to address environmental problems in the Bouquet Canyon watershed, outside of the city proper. He was dismayed that the City had backed out on a funding plan because of concerns about new labor regulations and requirements. It wasn't a very clear comment unless you were familiar with the issue, which nobody but the City's Environmental Services Division seemed to be.
Responses and Non-Responses
City Manager Ken Striplin responded to the concerns of mobile home residents by saying that a draft ordinance would be presented next year, likely in January. The ordinance has been undergoing revision in a public process, but he hinted that it was unlikely the 3% floor on annual rent increases would be revised down to 0%, as many hoped. He said they have been trying to balance the needs of residents and park owners, and he noted that the loss of redevelopment and low-income housing funds complicate this realm of problems. In short, expect big, complicated meetings about mobile home matters in 2015.
City Attorney Joe Montes spoke about the Bouquet Canyon watershed project. It was his understanding that the City, which would pass-through funds from a granting agency to tackle the project--had offered to work on a smaller amount so that new regulations could be avoided. More discussion will ensue.
In light of a strong public vote against digital billboards and comments asking that rezoning be addressed, Councilmember TimBen Boydston asked if the billboard ordinance of interest could be added to the agenda for the next meeting. He needed two members of the City Council to support him, but no one said a word. Indeed, a community that voted against digital billboards will continue to have areas spot-zoned to accommodate them for the foreseeable future.
Death Abounds
It's been a while since the last City Council meeting, so there was a lot of eulogizing to be done. Notable Claritans like Henry Schultz and Robert Newhall Chesebrough III recently passed away and were remembered. Perhaps most notable was Gladys Laney, who lived her whole life within just a few blocks of Santa Clarita, witnessing the transformation of dusty proto-Santa Clarita to the city we know today. Mayor Weste recalled visiting her at work when she turned 100.
Santa Clarita's Legislative Platform and Einstein Academy
The consent calendar was mostly a dull mix of traffic and construction matters. Item 2 was of interest because it formalized Santa Clarita's positions on legislative issues for 2015. These included points like support for creating St. Francis Dam National Memorial, opposition to unfunded state mandates, and so on. Federal and State topics were addressed ("Yet a giant landfill in Castaic is somehow too far out-of-bounds and far-removed to talk about?" some might hypothetically wonder). McLean asked that one item, which largely opposed high-speed rail, be amended to include support for other consumer rail projects.
There was a somewhat related discussion of lobbyists, which the City was proposing to continue employing for matters related to Cemex and the like. Boydston wondered at their efficacy, and Kellar assured him they were important and effective in furthering Santa Clarita's agenda on a variety of fronts.
Item 8 formally denied the request of Albert Einstein Academy (AEA) to build and operate an elementary school at an office building in an industrial park. Alan Ferdman thought it was unfair that the school was being denied for not meeting standards that weren't actually in the code, so he supported the project. Mayor Pro Tem McLean, too, was supportive, asking for this item to undergo a separate vote so she could express her support. Ultimately, though, the consent calendar exclusive of Item 8 was approved with the recommended actions, and Item 8 received 3 yes votes (Acosta, Boydston, Kellar), 1 no vote (McLean) and 1 abstention (Weste).
Just before the vote, Mayor Weste spoke to explain why she had abstained last time on the AEA vote. She claimed she "never abstains," but was sympathetic to AEA because there hadn't been an appropriate solution or alternative to the project identified. She couldn't vote to satisfy all parties, so she had chosen not to vote at all. It was an odd mix of reasoning--part protest, part frustration, part symbolic--but it didn't exactly scream "leadership" as one might hope for from their mayor. She instructed staff to determine where schools can reasonably go if they disrupt neighborhoods, aren't compatible with industrial/business parks, and can't buy out whole shopping centers. It's a fair question, but probably answered better by policy than a technical solution to be uncovered by staff.
Senior Center Funded
Santa Clarita has a large population of senior citizens, and after LA County agreed to pony up over $3M to find, acquire, and build a new SCV Senior Center, the City voted to match it with $3M of its own. Councilmember Kellar explained more funds would be needed, but this was an adequate start. The approval was very popular with everyone in the audience and on the Council. Councilmember Boydston observed that it had made unlikely allies of Berta Gonzalez-Harper and Alan Ferdman, for instance. Mayor Weste said she was "very proud to see this day."
Closing Remarks
Those for whom there hadn't been time during the first bout of public participation were given a chance to speak at the end of the meeting. Cam Noltemeyer said the Council's refusal to discuss Measure S related zoning changes "shows your contempt for the community." She continued by demanding that Mayor Weste make a statement about the Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion, but was left unsatisfied.
Patti Sulpizio also expressed her deep disappointment at the lack of discussion about the remains of the billboard ordinance in the wak of Measure S's defeat. She then made a play at embarrassing the City Council by passing out copies of their norms--highlighted, no less--and asking that they abide by their own rules of conduct. She was particularly upset that no one had spoken up when Rick Green was very rude to Cam Noltemeyer in a highly personal comment from the previous meeting. Sulpizio then read a letter from David Barlavi, a leader of the campaign against Measure S. It was rather witty, asking that the City stop attracting "vulture-like" enterprises (Allvision, the red light camera operators, Cemex, etc.) to the valley.
There were many speaker cards that went unclaimed as most of the mobile home park residents had left by this point in the meeting. One woman remained to say "this is abominable" in response to a 3% floor on annual rent increases. Her mother, she explained, is on a fixed Social Security income increasing only 1% per year, so she wouldn't be able to keep up. The meeting ended with this and other matters unresolved.
[1]Here's the agenda, especially for you.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Eating Santa Clarita: Purple Sage for Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving feast was more foraged than farmed. Sure, Pilgrims and the Wampanoag grew corn, but deer, fowl, fish, and other foods came from the wild. Foraging then was a matter of necessity. Today, foraging is a means of giving the Thanksgiving feast a truly local flavor. It’s an opportunity to consider what the wilderness provides—to connect with nature at the fundamental level as a gatherer. More practically, foraging is a pleasant reason for a hike or a task to assign those whom you wish to go take a hike.
I am planning to harvest and taste a few native foods
as we approach the big feast. Some will be novel, but we begin with a local
species of sage, that most quintessentially Thanksgiving of herbs. It makes for
a warmly welcoming introduction to eating Santa Clarita’s indigenous flora.
Meet Your Food
Sage adds an ineffable roundness to the turkey
and stuffing at the center of Thanksgiving; dinner wouldn’t be the same without
it. A few species of sage are indigenous to Santa Clarita, and of these, purple
sage (Salvia leucophylla) is the
choicest for culinary applications. It's related to the familiar culinary
sage (Salvia officinalis), which
hails from Europe. However, purple sage grows almost exclusively in Santa Barbara,
Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties—a plant of discriminating zip codes,
to be sure. Since it’s rarely sold in nurseries (the “purple sage” you see for
sale is usually the same name applied to a very different species), you’re one
of a tiny percentage of people who can feasibly incorporate this flavorful
plant into your meal.
Are you leery of consuming leaves off a bush growing
in the middle of nowhere? Take some solace in the fact that California's various sages have a long legacy
of use by several Native American tribes. In Edible and Useful Plants of California, Charlotte Clark writes that
the native black sage “was used by early settlers to season sausage, poultry, and
meat stuffings.”(111) Purple sage makes an appearance in Judith Larner Lowry’s recently
published book California Foraging,
where she writes, “The leaves have a future in edgy cuisines, since they are
attractive and tasty when lightly fried to garnish pasta or eat as appetizers.
The hint of bitterness will please those interested in re-introducing such
complex tastes to their palate.”(82) If you’re still nervous, remember that you’re
only using a little bit of it as a seasoning and, more importantly, you can
confirm it’s sage with the sniff test—an unmistakably sagey aroma.
Recognizing
and Harvesting
Note the unique, pebbly texture and silvery/gray/white leaves of purple sage.
Purple sage is a woody shrub with small, elongate
leaves with blunt edges. They are a beautiful silvery gray and have an uneven,
pebbly surface texture. Don’t expect any purple on the plant this time of year;
pale purple flowers come in spring. The strong, sagey smell is evident when
leaves are brushed or bruised. It’s a plant of lean soils and steep hillsides.
Good places to find it are the hills forming the southern flank of the Santa
Clarita Valley. There are many popular hiking spots here, as you’re likely aware.
If you want to be sure you know what it looks like, take a look at the photos below. To get to this particular plant for the purposes of identity confirmation, park at the City of Santa Clarita’s East Walker Ranch parking lot. From the
map kiosk, walk 20 paces down the trail and there, within a tangle of green, is
silvery purple sage. Dozens of other purple sage plants dot the hillside.
East Walker Ranch is full of purple sage, like most of the hilly areas in the southern Santa Clarita Valley. Here's one that's just yards from the start of the trail if you want to verify what it looks like before gathering your own.
You should only gather purple sage on a property where
you have permission. It’s not endangered or threatened by any means, but it’s
still not something you can legally collect at, say, Placerita Canyon State
Park. I wouldn’t be unduly concerned about the impact you’ll have on the wild
populations of purple sage by pinching a few leaves, though. It’s locally very common
and a robust plant that can withstand quite a lot. On a more philosophical note,
I think we’re more apt to notice troubling declines in plants like purple sage
if we identify and responsibly monitor or use them. Plants may well be more susceptible to demise from disinterest than from occasional, responsible harvesting.
Eating Purple
Sage: A Test with Chicken
To use purple sage fresh, just rinse off the leaves.
If you want to use it dried (the way culinary sage is often sold), leave stems
in a paper bag in a cool, dry spot to discourage mold. Wait a couple weeks. Then strip the leaves
and crumble them for use.
Since sage is often used with poultry, I decided to
taste it with chicken. I seasoned a small piece of chicken breast with a
mixture similar to what you might use when roasting a turkey, keeping sage as the sole
herbal component: 1 teaspoon melted butter, ¼ teaspoon lemon juice, 1/8
teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and 2 purple sage leaves, very finely
chopped. For a comparison, I made the same marinade with culinary sage leaves
as well. After the chicken marinated for 15 minutes, I cooked it in a skillet.
The purple sage in this photo looks a little more green than usual because it came from a watered plant, which leads to greener (vs. grayer) leaves. The culinary sage is of the favored 'Berggarten' variety.
Purple sage gave a savory, woodsy flavor with
sweetly floral elements somewhat reminiscent of lavender. Culinary sage made
the chicken taste rich and round and contributed a sweet-bitter flavor like pine
or rosemary. Both were unmistakably “sagey”, but side by side, differences were
evident. Given my deep Claritan roots, I was hoping I’d like the native sage
better. However, centuries of selective breeding of culinary sage have produced a familiar, tasty plant. I probably would have given it a slight edge over purple in a
blind taste test. For this, I am ashamed.
The Verdict
Sage is probably the most accessible way to add a wild-foraged
element to your Thanksgiving meal. The flavor of purple sage isn’t so different
from culinary sage, so it will be a nice blend of novelty and familiarity at
the table. It can make an appearance in turkey, stuffing, or flash-fried for a
crispy garnish. It won’t taste exactly the
same as culinary sage, but you’ll get most of the flavor you’re wanting and
expecting. Purple sage's novelty and Claritan credentials will surely make up the difference. Just think of how you will regale family and
friends with the story of how you hiked, searched, and triumphed in your quest
to bring a wild-foraged piece of Santa Clarita to the feast. Why wouldn't you?
My next culinary trial will be California Bay,
friend to pumpkin and potatoes.
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