“The color guard twirled their guns and marched the flags with precision;
Melanie Usher gave a gospel-singer’s gut-vibrating rendition of ‘America’, and
two thousand people in the semi-dark bleachers bowed their heads to the
invocation. It was then that
Superintendent Clyde Smyth of the Hart District announced: ‘I’d like to inform
you that at 4:30 this afternoon we officially became the city of Santa Clarita.”
The Signal, December 16, 1987
“I've been at many impressive events, and I've even been honored at
some, but nothing has thrilled me more or given me more goose bumps than this
event.” State Senator Ed Davis[1]
Much of the City of Santa Clarita’s
future was portended in the mere sixteen days she spent in 1987. Incorporation represented a fresh beginning, not the end, of our defining struggle between development and preservation. Santa Clarita's most successful politician ever won an important title. And our first city ordinance safeguarded an enduring symbol that pervades Clarita's past and present.
A City Realized
In November of 1987, voters in Santa Clarita were asked to decide whether they wished to form their own city. Ted Vollmer of the L.A. Times called incorporation of Santa
Clarita “the hottest race in Los Angeles County.[2]” He explained, “The issue here was one of
growth […] some residents have become increasingly concerned over unchecked
development.” The plan to become the
largest city in California ever to incorporate was widely debated as the vote neared. In a point/counterpoint feature, Connie
Worden argued for cityhood: “Without the creation of municipal government, the area will simply
become another San Fernando Valley, which the residents of the Santa
Clarita Valley view as a series of overbuilt developments, clogged
arterials, mini-malls and garish billboards.[3]” Anthony Skirlick, Jr., of Citizens Against Cityhood, expressed misgivings: “There are at least seven completely different communities within this
area. ...From Sand Canyon to Valencia, cultural values are sufficiently divergent to invalidate the entire concept of cityhood.[4]” The
November vote made it clear that Claritans favored self-governance. 14,723 (69%) voted in favor of incorporation,
and 11,166 (58.5%) voted in favor of electing council members at-large rather
than by district[5]. The choice of at-large representation seemed to challenge Skirlick's view of Santa Clarita as a valley divided[6].
Cityhood became official on
December 15, 2012. A celebratory ceremony took
place at the College of the Canyons gym, which was decorated with flags and
poinsettias for the occasion[1]. Buck
McKeon was sworn in as mayor, Jan Heidt as mayor pro tem, and Jo Anne Darcy,
Carl Boyer, and Dennis Koontz rounded out the city council. By all accounts, it was a rollicking
event[7], and it was certainly gratifying for those who had been working since 1985 to achieve cityhood[8].
Buck Up
Howard "Buck" McKeon served as Santa Clarita's first mayor. McKeon's service on numerous local boards (among them Newhall Memorial Hospital, Canyon Country Chamber of Commerce, Hart School District) and work as a local businessman (Valencia National Bank, Howard and Phil's Western Wear)[9] garnered enough visibility and support to earn him the most votes in a field of 26 city council candidates[5].
Looking back on his term in 2007, McKeon wrote, “Being part of the first City Council, and then
becoming the first mayor, was quite an adventure…It was a bit of fun, it was a
bit of an adventure, it was a challenge and it was an education and it was even
a bit scary.[10]" Who knew, in 1987, that McKeon was bound to serve as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee in 2012? McKeon's election as mayor was no small step in his unconventional political trajectory.
Quercus[11]
Santa Clarita’s identity is decidedly
arboreal; our oaks define us. The
Tataviam were sustained on acorns. The Oak of the Golden Dream brought prospectors
and fame. Buck McKeon used an acorn/oak metaphor in his first speech as mayor[1]. John Quigley protested development by perching in an oak slated for cutting. Oaks are in our place names, pictured on our seal, and in our protected areas and landscaping alike. Oaks and Santa Clarita are inseparable.
Fittingly, the first ordinance passed by the new city council on December 15, 1987 protected oak trees. The statement of purpose in the ordinance showed surprising conviction: "The City lies in the Santa Clarita Valley, the beauty of which is greatly enhanced by the presence of large numbers of majestic oak trees. Development of the area has resulted in the removal of a great number of these trees. Further uncontrolled and indiscriminate destruction of oak trees would detrimentally affect the safety and welfare of the citizens of Santa Clarita.[12]" So fundamental are oaks to Santa Clarita's character that it may be fair to ask: is it Santa Clarita without the oaks? Like the other narratives initiated in 1987, this one will be revisited.
Notes
[1]Mayerene Barker. “Santa
Clarita: New City Opens for Business.”
Los Angeles Times. 16 Dec 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-16/local/me-19568_1_santa-clarita
[2]Ted Vollmer. "Voters Favoring Incorporation of Santa Clarita." Los Angeles Times. 4 Nov 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-11-04/news/mn-12375_1_santa-clarita
[3]Connie Worden. "Point/Counterpoint: The Issue: Santa Clarita Cityhood: FOR." Los Angeles Times. 4 Oct 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-04/local/me-32872_1_santa-clarita
[4]Anthony J. Skirlick Jr. "Point/Counterpoint: The Issue: Santa Clarita Cityhood: AGAINST." Los Angeles Times. 4 Oct 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-04/local/me-32874_1_santa-clarita/2
[5]A .pdf of old election results: http://votesantaclarita.com/pdfs/HistoricalResults.pdf
[6]An interesting aside: Santa Clarita was originally envisioned as being much, much larger: 95 square-miles. But Ruth Bennell of LA LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) decided the incorporation of a smaller area was prudent for financial reasons. Read a delightfully terse account from the LA Times here: http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-07/local/me-925_1_santa-clarita
[7]Apart from "America" being sung by student Melanie Usher, the Barker article[1] says Scott Seamons sang "The Impossible Dream" and the booming Allan Cameron sang "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand."
[8]Jerry Reynolds. "Birth of a City," in History of the Santa Clarita Valley, ed. Leon Worden. 1988. http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/reynolds/part70.html
[9]"Biographical Information" at http://independenceave.org/congress/member/ca/25
[10]Gail Ortiz, Diana Sevanian. The City of Santa Clarita: Celebrating 20 Years of Success. Pioneer Publications. 2007.
[11]That's the genus of oaks. We have a number of species in Santa Clarita, but the ones you see most often around the city are Quercus agrifolia, the Coast Live Oak, and Quercus lobata, the Valley Oak.
[12]The original ordinance is featured on the City's 25th Anniversary page.
