NAFF’s latest video provides a good summary of Tuesday night’s council meeting and confirms, to me at least, that the rage over the Mayo expansion, the G&L donations, the campaign contribution changes and a myriad of other issues and problems has reached critical mass and boiled over.
It’s taken quite a while to get to this point. Let’s review where we are and how we got here.
For years we’ve heard from TimBen Boydston, David Gauny and others on that side of the camp that something is sick in the City of Santa Clarita. They (Boydston more than Gauny) have alleged, along with many others, that the City’s Staff and its Manager (Ken Pulskamp, or as Bruce McFarland calls him, “The Don”) have too much power and influence over City affairs, over development and such. They allege that, contrary to the natural structure of a Council-Manager form of local government, it is Ken Pulskamp who is calling the shots and directing the Council to do things.
Oh sure, it’s probably more subtle than that, this group would say. It’s not like Ken Pulskamp calls up the City Council and tells them how to vote. It’s more like KP and the professional City Staff exercise an inordinate amount of influence by determining what rises to the Council’s attention, and they, as a result, get what they want.
Which isn’t always what the people of Santa Clarita want, at least according to TimBen Boydston and David Gauny.
So what about this theory? Well, consider this from the City staff’s point of view. These people are professionals, having trained for years in their respective disciplines. They went through what by all accounts is a pretty rigorous hiring process. They obtained certifications, credentials and advanced degrees specific to their disciplines and to local government and, what’s more, many of them live here as well. They win awards. Magazines write about them. They’re justifiably proud of their accomplishments.
The City Council, in contrast, only works part time and has a few weeks off during the summer. Some of them are pretty adept at the technical odds and ends of city planning, finance, and perhaps traffic and transportation. Few are probably adept at engineering or interfacing with other technocrats in other segments of government. The bottom line is they are part time citizen representatives, and they depend on the staff for professional and informed advice because, let’s be honest here, they’re largely clueless when it comes to running a city. But they love showing up at ribbon cutting ceremonies.
The staff, meanwhile, is interested in furthering their local government careers. They read the planning and transportation journals, they attend society meetings and conferences, they educate themselves further. In general, they know their stuff, they want to do a good job and put some cool projects on their CVs.
And -this is key- no professional planner thinks generic, low-density suburban projects have a real future in our community or elsewhere.
And so, as technocrats are wont to do, they think big and dream up big plans. Like One Valley, One Vision. Like the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan. Or the North Newhall Specific Plan. And a dozen other large-scale, multi-year planning efforts that, in their considered opinion, rationally address the economic and infrastructure challenges facing Santa Clarita in the years and decades ahead.
And Ken Pulskamp is their voice to the City Council. I repeat that: Pulskamp is not just in charge of the staff, he is the public face of the staff.
Which is why the Gaunyites and Boydston camps hate him so much. Because they look at these big plans and think, “Holy shit! The City staff is remaking us brick by brick into the San Fernando Valley! They are planning to bring another 250,000 people* here! What about we the people?”
To some extent, I see their point. Is it right for a City Manager to not just implement policy, but to formulate policy as well? After all, Ken Pulskamp is not elected by the people, but Bob Kellar is. Shouldn’t policy making be left up to the elected officials?
In our case, I’d argue that the City staff and Pulskamp can and should attempt to formulate policy for the reasons I cited above. The City staff is professional, educated, and knowledgeable. We should consider their plans, opinions, and knowledge.
Why? Other cities do it. In a 1997 survey of City managers, the International City/County Managers Association reported that 80% of City Managers think they should be involved themselves in policy formulation. What’s more, a 2001 survey of City Councilmembers in Council-Manager cities revealed that a majority of elected council members considered the City Manager to be a very important part of the policy formulation process.
On the Council side of things, a National League of Cities study in 2001 reported that Council Members of cities with populations between 75,000 and 200,000 spent only about 25 hours per week working “on council related matters.” My bet is that number would be even lower in Santa Clarita. Does anyone honestly think the five of them spend 25 hours a week working on policy matters related to Santa Clarita?
I can send you the sources I cited by email if you like (they are not linkable), but the point is this: many cities depend on their staff and management to formulate policies. The elected leadership, in contrast, has neither the time nor the chops to really create successful policy in all circumstances. This is the reality, and it’s not just in Santa Clarita.
And so there you have it. The vocal and boisterous discontent we saw at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting is a direct result of the City of Santa Clarita’s Council-Manager form of government. It is a form of government that relies heavily on a full-time, professional staff to not just manage city affairs but also to create responsible policy for the entire city.
And the discontent is also a direct result of having part time Councilmembers who lean, in a big way, on the City staff for ideas to solve problems.
This feels undemocratic to some. It feels particularly undemocratic when 100 people show up in the Council Chambers and are ignored.
But guess what? This structure works for most of us, at this time. Life is pretty good here. I think we under-represent some segments of the population and I’m tempted by the idea of Districts, but by and large, I see the City staff making good-faith efforts to plan for the future of the SCV, to grow it economically in an era of rising gas prices and increasing environmental awareness. Whereas Gauny and Boydston see Mayo as a canary in the coalmine, I look at a revitalized Old Town Newhall with a Metrolink station, a community center and a new library and see smart planning paying off. Whereas Bruce McFarland claims The Don is ignoring the will of the people, I see a survey that says most people are happy and want more local jobs, businesses, and things to do (I also see a lot of silly people claiming traffic is a problem and the City, as a whole, cowering in the face of that absurdity).
So in the end, Boydston and Gauny camps are right. The City manager & staff do push policy**, but it is, by and large, good policy that most of the community probably supports.
* The Signal headline that has made more NAFF videos than any other is the one that says SCV will someday have 400,000 people. NAFF and his pals think that’s what the City staff are doing: trying to build out the SCV so that an additional 150,000 people move here. The reality is the staff is responsibly thinking about a future in which 400,000 people, of their own volition in a free market, might want to call the SCV home. And they are planning for that in a rational and logical way.
** And yes, I suppose you could say the staff have an interest in having the people they like on the City Council, because the councilmembers have shown themselves to be amenable to the staff’s good policy
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Cam’s not aging well.
Rude comment Tim. Stay on topic, not personal appearance slams.
You misunderstand CS. She does not look well to me.
It didn’t read that way Tim.
Age being the key word.
I’ll say it, she looks haggard. Big whoop.
Cam likely attributes her deteriorating appearance to “phantom water” and the lack of a CAG for the Bermite property.
This kind of crap is what started the death spiral of prior SCV boards. Or is that what you want (again)?
We have a CAG. Try again.
Timmy, are you sure you are only turning 50. You really do look much older.
I’ve decided I am Beavis. JB is Butthead because he is taller.
“they depend on the staff for professional and informed advice because, let’s be honest here, they’re largely clueless when it comes to running a city”
Unfortunately they get more than informed advice, they get recommendations. All they need to do is nod.
He depends on the staff for professional and informed advice because, let’s be honest here, he is largely clueless when it comes to running a country”
never seen anyone end a statement with one ”…
we cutting and pasting again?
Well said, Jeff! But I also agree with Frank Ferry that, for the most part, the alleged “rage over the Mayo expansion, the G&L donations, the campaign contribution changes and a myriad of other issues and problems” has not changed the faces of the chronically unhappy. If the “rage” has “reached critical mass and boiled over” it is contained to the “usual suspects” who occasionally or frequently whine to or about everything. When incumbents get reelected and polls show the people are very happy with their city, it is Boydston and Gauny who should question whether they are out of touch and not listening to the masses.
The one flaw in your theory, SS, is that many people aren’t pleased with a lot of goings on at city hall but when you’re acquainted and even friends with most of the folks at City Hall you tend not to want to rock the boat which is sad. What’s even sadder is that the rest of the masses don’t care because their lives are already too busy just trying to feed the fam.
Gotcha. So there is a silent majority of ragefully boiled over people, but they are too scared, busy and hungry to rock the boat. That pulls it all together very well.
They are also too busy to Vote by Mail, which takes a critical 30 to 40 minutes away from their 29 hour a day struggle for survival!!!!!
Look at the voter turnout.
So many vetch yet so few act!
“So in the end, Boydston and Gauny camps are right. The City manager & staff do push policy**, but it is, by and large, good policy that most of the community probably supports.”
Boy are you wrong, on the facts, from a historical perspective in SCV. As one of a very few people who used to sit for hours, reading City files, I can tell you that in terms of setting policy, and making deals, SCV’s staff members at the City Manager, Assistant City Manager, and Community Development/Planning level have a very long history of major league F ups which have cost the City’s public purse (and thereby the taxpayers) millions of dollars, and will continue to do so. I am talking in the neighborhood of $30+ Million and still growing.
Then there’s the issue of “Who sets City policy”. We have an Open Space Assessment District, for which all property owners in SCV are taxed. We have City Council members, especially Laurene Weste, openly and aggressively supporting expansion of the acreage of open space throughout the valley, ideally at the least expense to the taxpayer. Then we have Paul Brotzman writing a NEW letter, on City stationery, bluntly telling L.A. County, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and California Fish & Game that the City supports the land use plan for Newhall Ranch which produces the LEAST amount of open space in the project. Exactly WHEN was that City policy discussed, let alone set, in Open Session, compliant with the Brown Act (i.e. open meeting law)? Did Santa Clarita’s City Council set that policy in closed session, in violation of the Brown Act, or is Mr. Brotzman just setting material policies WITHOUT the Council’s consent?
More on this topic will be coming out in the next week or so. However, I concur with those depicted in the latest Not A Ferry Fan video. It is NOT the place of staff members to set major City policies, without open discussion of them at City Council meetings with public input.
In the “real world” part of California, i.e. outside of the City of Santa Clarita, that’s how it works. City Council people serve up presumptuous staff members heads on a platter.
Another great example of complacency in the SCV. Out of the tens of thousands of letters sent to city residents and property owners asking to return the SanDist opposition letter only 6000+ have been returned. If something like this that will add hundreds of dollars to our tax bills each year can’t get the interest of our residents then why should they care about the things that go on at City Hall.
My friend “Jackie”, who is our bell weather of uninformed citizenry, insists that she never received the Sanitation District ballot. She became absolutely indignant when I told her what was going on, and subscribes to the theory that the ballot was disguised to look like junk mail and she threw it out.
Jackie actually spent close to an hour on the phone with the Sanitation District, trying to get another ballot. Ultimately she was told she couldn’t have one.
Also, one of the Sanitation District employees she spoke with speculated that the ballots had been sent to someone other than the property owners….to the mortgage lenders who regularly receive tax bills and pay residential real estate taxes out of escrows which form a part of homeowners’ monthly payments.
And of course “good” mortgage lenders like Bank of America and Wells Fargo don’t forward this sort of mail when they receive it. If it’s not a tax bill they put it in the trash.
Clever devils at the Sanitation District. That’s a dodge I would not have thought to use.
Your friend is absolutely correct. They did look like junk mail. I’m not sure how they arrived at all the addresses but I received one for both the home I own and a rental that I own. My tax bills on both come to my home.
Navigator:
If by “it looked like junk mail” you mean that it was not hand addressed by their mommy with a handwritten note and enclosed cookies begging them to open it and pay attention or did not have big red letters that said “FREE PORNOGRAPHY INSIDE” then yes, it looked like junk mail.
Give it a rest Tim. It was designed to look like bulk mail. It’s a trick used by many solicitors. Whether it was done that way on purpose or not is the question.
The notice came. It said “important notice of fee increase-your chance to protest” on it. Tax notices go to BOTH the homeowner and the mortgage holder if it is an impound system. The people at the Sanitation District were pulling stuff out of their behind to get your friend off the phone.
You friend is a great of example of the 83% of the disengaged who can’t bring themselves to admit it because they know they look retarded, so they’ve got to make up conspiracy theories to cover their lack of attention.
Recently, Larry Rasmussen’s group had a public meeting with Romero Canyon residents. Many said that this was the first time they had heard about this high school (ten years in the making) in their back yard. An elected official attending called them out on their lack of attention these last ten years. A resident said they were busy “living their lives.” This brave official stated that if they did not believe that paying attention to the education of their children and pieces of infrastructure going on next door was not part of “their lives” they really should not complain to people working hard on these issues.
You can print new protest forms.
http://hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20764&Itemid=0
I never received one either. And I am someone who removes and shreds our name and address from any “junk” mail and recycles the rest. I would have seen such a notice.
I never got one. I wonder how many are ike me and are assumed to not care, when in fact I was never given a chance to voice my opinion.
Is David Gauny not smart enough to be able to address council without reading word-for-word from a written text? Or maybe he looks down because there is a mirror on the podium?
It’s much easier to write your thoughts down in an organized manner when you don’t have the egg timer staring at you. That way you don’t sound nearly as disjointed as some who try to address council without written notes.
Gotcha, that’s what I thought – he’s not too smart.
“I love me, I love me not…..”
RemStar:
Many of the marginally educated use manuscripts because they are sensitive to ridicule if they mispronounce or stumble over a word.
Kinda like using a teleprompter for everything?
What a lame insult, one that reveals a desperation to attack someone on the flimsiest of premises.
It’s far more efficient to write down three minutes’ worth of well-crafted, persuasive words and read them than to hope that you remember all of your points when in front of an audience and under a time constraint. That’s why Obama never speaks without a teleprompter (even when he’s addressing elementary school children).
1. Clearly, David Gauny is undereducated and lacks the ability to address council unscripted. This is indisputable. Even batshit crazy Cam can speak for 3 minutes without notes. 2. Council isn’t listening to him anyway. They know he is a disgruntled whining sore loser. 3. I can now enjoy my weekend having taken well founded cheap shots at that failure of a used car salesman (just the kind of person we need on our council to “save” Santa Clarita).
A flick of the handle here, and this board starts its inexorable swirl to our $100M desalination plant.
Why are these posts tolerated?
Because Jeff and Tim love Frank, aka Saugus Splasher.
If Frank is Splasher, I would like to take this opportunity to tell him that I do my own research and think for myself. Any comment implying otherwise is very insulting. Am I also a mindless idiot when I agree with you instead?
Moreover, please stop lumping David in with TBB. They are not the same at all!
Did it ever occur to anyone that some of us give information to David and not necessarily the other way around? Just asking…
Funny because I was thinking YOU are Frank! FYI, I prefer to remain anonymous to protect myself from the retribution of the simpleminded and powerless.
1. If you think DG is uneducated you haven’t been listening – just like Frank.
2. Obviously Council doesn’t listen to many speakers
3. I don’t think DG has sold cars yet, has he?
I’d still rather listen to someone give a well written presentation than to listen to someone ramble on without ever getting to the point.
Some of the most idiotic things ever said have come out of the mouths of “highly educated” folks speaking informally and unscripted. Especially fun when they are still on an open microphone.
You hold that top slot in my book, Berta Baby.
At least I stand for something and have the courage to use my own name. Unlike you, a coward who likes to call me names, and make cracks, but lacks the courage to do so without hiding behind your mama’s skirts.
RemStar,
I am still hoping for a reply to my comment regarding your inability to differentiate between racism and using generalized stereotypes in an earlier thread.
In light of the low-level thought processes apparent in your posts, maybe you should sit out a few rounds of name-calling.
Note to Greg: I’m ignoring you.
Regarding better educated city planning staff, let’s look at this discipline. Some years ago, no such major existed. When life in big cities became so unbearable, it was decided to try to fix the problems of crowded city living by creating an “Urban Planning” major in some Universities. Over the years, this “major” joined forces with transportation environmentalists, urban organizers, and some politicians, to villainize suburbs and try to solve all our living problems by selling the public on the creation of bigger and better large cities. Our politicians in Sacramento have bought into it with “Smart Growth” legislation. The truth is that unless these well-educated city staff are given leadership from the citizens of SCV, they will give us all the misery of large cities. Suggestion to Universities: add a City Planning class on crowded rat experiments.
As the holder of a B.A. in Urban Planning from an obnoxiously leftist, elitist school in the East, I have to agree with what Center Cut says. However, in California, the presumptuous attitude of “managing stupid elected officials” and that “professionals know best” is taught in universities’ Schools of Public Administration.
Santa Clarita’s less than esteemed former City Manager used to be an “adjunct professor” in one such school, and during the period leading up to 2000 or so was repeatedly caught describing, to his students, the stupidity of Santa Clarita’s city council members, and how easily he could manipulate them and herd them like sheep. There are probably still old pocket dictaphone tapes floating around Santa Clarita where George was recorded making those statements.
So, Center Cut, your rat experiments need to be expanded to those with Public Administration degrees, like many Santa Clarita employees who shall remain nameless.
Jeff-
That being said, the City Manager serves at the pleasure of the Council. So in that way, the policy that the City Manager sets is only because the Council endorses it ipso facto. If the Council becomes displeased at the direction of the policy, they replace the City Manager.
Now, admittedly, I’m more familiar with Burbank, because its where I work, but down here, the grandiose policy is set by the Council during their annual goal setting meetings. They lay out their expectations, and their goals. IIRC, our sustainability task force started at the request of the council… not as a result of our City Manager’s actions.
But, yes very much so, much of our policy comes from the staff… because, as you point out, we’re the ones that are paid fulltime to contemplate the issues and develop the solutions. In my world, our water sustainability policies evolved from staff, in response to challenges in the availability of the water supply. We had alternatives, we could continue to allow Burbank customers to use as much as they want… but then the cost would go up. We know that the city council wants to keep rates low… so we develop policy based on that direction.
I’m not aware of the SC City Council having any stated goals. They don’t set any performance standards either, afaik. (If they do, I’m curious, and would like to be pointed toward that info.) If they did, then they’d clearly be in charge of the policy, because all things would be measured up against that… Or so goes the theory.
The two most powerful words in Santa Clarita are “Recommended Action”. They appear at the bottom of every item on every agenda, and 95% of the time, the City Council accepts the staff recommendations without any modification–often without any discussion (and in Frank Ferry’s case, without even reading the recommended action; he didn’t know what was going on at the past meeting). It’s hard to say that City staff aren’t running the City when that’s the case.
Many of “the discontent” would be OK with the status quo if the recommended action wasn’t always “accept enormous building project that violates zoning and destroys quality of life because some young planners want to cut their teeth on Santa Clarita and Ken Pulskamp wants a bigger tax base.”
I, having spent time with staff from time to time, know their professionalism and dedication to improving and implementing great ideas. I will be the first to admit I highly respect them for the work they do to assist in managing a great city with great potential.
The rub come from overhauling and recalculating up to three times the scale of development in a new city plan (ovov). The current master plan has maximum building standards that requires extensive justification and proof of public benefit to obtain the desired CUP’s. Conditional use permits that would grant a developer the right to exceed zoning parameters for “dream profit scenarios” while looking for as little mitigation responsibility as they can get away with. Meanwhile, this progress can deface the sphere of influence and way of life for residents who live in the wake of the new project(s).
You drive down any street and every lot is owned by someone who is there because they want to be there. Who work hard to stake a place for their family to grow and have good schools with low traffic impact and no crime. These are generally the common reasons for everyone. Don’t you think they should have a significant or a majority role in the formation of our cities master-plan? Don’t residents pay through ownership and taxation for the right to have impute in development of their village? Suburban, urban, or otherwise?
These entrepreneurial mentalities are rampant in the small city development world with the lure of increased tax income being chief among the reasons. The rub? While the city and council are there to guard against this type of encroachment on residents lifestyle by insisting on scale projects that compliment and enhance neighborhoods for everyones benefit, they get elected or re-elected by these developers dollars and that interferes with the decision making on the bench. Had they grilled G&L harder and made them go farther to mitigate issues, do you think they would have given $35k to the incumbents campaigns? Do you know how much money they saved by sending $30k worth of mailers for Ender? The yes girl!
When people say corruption they mean the motives and pledge of allegiance they (the council) are supposed to have to us is shifted to big contributers who can keep them elected. People own this town lot by lot and while they may love the staff and all they do for us, they hate having elected officials who are not putting them first on their allegiance list of priorities. Who are willing to allow development overage for the sake of favors and contributions. That is the nutshell of it.
You’re right in your article, but that line that gets lost in the gray area of favors that gets people involved. When it’s made irrefutably clear, some on the council will laugh at the public like they’re the little people. That’s the discontent. People feel sidestepped by those deciding the developmental topography or our valley while residents with the most at stake are left out.
For what it’s worth
Well said, Sterling.
Reply
IHeartSCV says:
July 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm
“What a lame insult, one that reveals a desperation to attack someone on the flimsiest of premises.”
Thank you, IHeart.
“Apathy implies content.”
Or disgust.
No, I’m saying those who choose not to cast a futile vote may be educated and disgusted.
You presume them to be apathetic as if it was a fact, not an assertion.
In many cases, yes. Big money and the GOBN run this valley now, and many people have figured this out and ask themselves, “why bother?”
Take this argument back to 1987 and you have exactly the same ingredients that got this city born to replace a dysfunctional county in the first place. Kind of ironic if you ask me.
Agreed. The City has become the insular GOBN network that was the County back when we formed Santa Clarita.
“A little revolution now and then is a good thing.”
No candidate received a simple majority of the vote.
The reality is there is a division of opinion among the electorate, and neither apathy nor disgust can accurately be attributed to the Santa Clarita non-voting citizenry without disinterested, professional polling.
The incumbents and their supporters can claim mandate all they want. It does not establish itself as fact.
You have a straw man argument. Neither Gauny nor TB are no growthers. That’s a Ferry tale.
JB – I looked up the word “clarify” in the dictionary and it didn’t say anything about”covering your ass” or “weaseling”.
Being called a terrorist by any elected official are fighting words, and if said outside of council chambers could be grounds for a charge of assault. I agree that Ferry is a bullying idiot.
Gee, talk about qualified City Staff, I think Jason Smisko of OVOV fame was a communications major in college. I’ve watched him tapdance around City Hall for quite a while and over the years has gained some planning experience. My first experience with him was over the City not enforcing the Robinson Ranch permit conditions. Someone from the City has yet to give me a good answer for how they were able to drill a water well to serve their golf course!
I guess the City just didn’t get those permit conditions quite right. Guess what – this isn’t an isolated instance. If a developer wants to tear down 20 oaks that is ok because they can replace them with 200 saplings but if a resident trims a branch without a permit look out!
I’ll guarantee you that Jason is better at what he does than you are at being a crank on the internet.
Nice substantive reply Mike!
It is pretty simple. Be for whatever Cam is against. You’ve got a 95% chance of being on the right side of the issue. You can see her evil stare at the councilmembers as she leaves the podium. Frank comments on it.
Good commentary, Jeff.
One minor point: Some of the council members — as it happens, our women council members — certainly do spend more than 25 hours per week on policy matters. (Even in weeks when there ISN’T a 25-hour council meeting like the other night.
Great writing Jeff
I do not hate Ken Pulskamp. For the most part he is a very good City Manager.
This whole notion of hate and rage is a bill of goods designed to smear the citizens who care enough to become involved in the political process, but who happen to disagree with some projects or policies of planning in our city. Yes people are unhappy when they are called names and dismissed by elected officials in open meetings. The level of respect for our citizens continues to fall.
I do believe that the balance that is called for in a Council/Manager form of government needs to be adjusted. I also believe that the vision that most of our Council and our City Manager have for the future of Santa Clarita is different than what most people who live here want. It is not what you build, but how much, how dense and where you build it.
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