Cityhood Backers Busy

The following is a reprint of a Signal article originally published on March 5, 1986.

Saturday was a busy day for Jan Heidt.

Heidt, spending her first day canvassing during the Cityhood Feasibility Committee “blitz,” gathered 61 names and won the prize (dinner for two at Le Chene) for the most signatures.

Heidt, along with approximately 40 volunteers, added 585 new signatures Saturday and between 900 and 1000 new signatures over the weekend as the effort was extended, Connie Worden, spokesman for the Committee, said. Forty percent of the needed 13,000 have now been collected. The Committee has until July to complete the drive.

The effort underway by the Santa Clarita Valley and Canyon Country chambers-sponsored City Feasibility Committee began Jan. 2. The Committee needs signatures from 25 percent of the registered voters (11,500) in the SCV, but hopes to gather 13,000 because some of may be invalid.

If enough signatures are gathered on the petitions which request that the SCV be incorporated the Local Agency County Formation Commission, a county agency, will study the feasibility of incorporating the SCV. If LAFCO decides a city is feasible here, an election will be held, probably in the spring of next year.

Feeling the “blitz” was successful, Worden said the Committee would like to do it again in April. In the meantime, in an effort to speed the collection process up, petitions will be distributed to interested businesses this week.

Besides being a way to collect a lot of signatures. Worden said the “blitz” was educational. “I think some of our newer volunteers had a chance to find out what’s going on in the citizens’ minds.”

Heidt, who canvassed an area in Canyon Country, said. “I hardly found any opposition. Most people were aw are of it (the incorporation effort) and felt that traffic and development were making things miserable. I didn’t have to convince people. They’d just sign. That was a very’ positive thing and keeps you going,” she said.

Jill Klajic of Canyon Country’, said she enjoys going out and meeting her neighbors. “The majority of people are eager and go ahead and sign. But some people are leary about the tax situation. And then there was one man who was worried that a local developer was behind the whole thing and was planning to take over the valley.

“Another man thought if we became a city Valencia Company would leave and we’d become a slum. There is a lot of misinformation. But generally people are interested.” she said.

One of the facts she and other volunteers must clarify is that, since the passage of Proposition 13. property taxes will not go up after incorporation unless two thirds of the people vote for it.

Klajic said she is in favor of incorporation in order to have a parks and recreation department, a planning department and more control over zoning. “This area is my home and we’d like to see it maintained at a quality of life we want. This is a real grassroots effort by people who want to see this area preserved,” she said.

Maisie Ives, who along with her husband Charles live in and canvass the Friendly Valley Villas in Newhall, said the question they get asked most is about taxes going up. “And they want to know what would be good about being a city.’’

She said she tells people they would have nearby agencies to approach with problems instead of having to drive to downtown Los Angeles.

She also says she believes a city would help solve some of the problems she and her neighbors have had with developers.

Ives said more than 90 percent of the people she contacted signed the petition. “Some people are actually waiting for you.”