I just read KHTS’ brief  ”article” touting the city’s “injection” of $100,000 taxpayer dollars into Old Town Newhall merchants, when a thought crossed my mind.

Two years ago, a large amount of protesters visited City Hall to beg the City to save Newhall Hardware. Those very same City Councilmembers and City Manager said nothing could be done, that there wasn’t any way for the City to save or even delay the shutdown of the beloved 60 year old hardware store. Even the City Attorney chimed in and made the same remarks.

The Newhall Hardware fans, dejected (they even printed Save Newhall Hardware t-shirts), left and Newhall Hardware is now but a dusty SCV memory.

Two years and a fancy-sounding “21 Point Economic Development Plan” later, and we don’t even blink an eye at throwing $100,000 to Newhall businesses so they can buy things like CDs, Prepaid phone cards, cell phones, and sinks.

All this from a community who showed up en masse last year at the Tea Party rally to protest the bailouts, waste, fraud and abuse! It’s absurd.

Who can be proud of this program? Is this “injection” of cash even saving a single job? $100k to Newhall Hardware to keep it open for awhile longer might have been worth it, but this?

who’s uneasy with how the City of Santa Clarita is literally bending over backwards to hand over money and services to the SCV Business class.

I Heart takes a look at what happened at tonight’s City Council meeting and explains:

The enthusiasm inspired by officially kicking off the Arts Commission only grew when the City moved onto the last and most important bit of new business, “Support for Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation (SCVEDC).”

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I can’t imagine that it was a surprise to the City Council that the EDC Board of Directors wanted $200,000, not $100,000. It’s inept at best, deceptive at worst that the City agendized the item as it did with funding coming in two chunks of $50,000, not the $200,000 that everyone seemed to really want. Either way it’s not “a lot” of money by City standards, but $200,000 might have garnered more opposition.

Laurie Ender did an excellent job of pointing out the faults of this dearly beloved plan. After noting that the agenda didn’t accurately reflect the amount of money that the EDC Board really wanted, she reminded the City Council that the money comes from taxpayers and that “It’s not my money to spend.” She argued that since more than $1.6 million dollars is being spent on internal economic development efforts by the City, it was difficult to accept that more money was needed to support a group that would also focus on economic development. She said “Duplication of efforts” would be a “huge concern for me.”

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All five members voted to lend the SCVEDC the monetary support, to which Kellar responded “Can I give a big thank you to everybody? This is huge!”

Call me old-fashioned, but I find the unending love-fest between businesses and the City something between tiresome and troubling. But it’s a fact of life in Santa Clarita, one there is no getting around. So now a man who runs a car dealership in Santa Clarita will be partially in charge of how money from the City will support local businesses that in turn support the City. It’s dizzying.

Now let me temper this by saying I do support Santa Clarita businesses. I spend money in stores here every day. I know many business owners. I talk to them and I listen. Hell, I admire them.

And I support the City’s support for businesses here in town. In fact, I think local governments have an obligation to encourage commerce and thereby fund city programs, infrastructure and services.

But, to channel Bob Kellar, gee whiz. $200,000 of the taxpayer’s dollars to fund this nebulous program, the activities of which are already being done by the City, the Chamber, COC, and other institutions?

Perhaps in and of itself, that’s not so bad. But let’s review what the City has done for the SCV Business Class in just the last year or so:

• By the city’s own numbers, it spends $1.6 million to support SCV businesses, attract new ones and encourage commerce every year
• Enterprise Zone program
• Chamber representatives get to review the City Council agenda before the public does
• Conceived of and paid $250,000 for the  Think Santa Clarita Valley campaign, including advertising campaigns outside of Santa Clarita. This program actually encourages people to shop outside the City limits too
• $2.3+ million spent on Old Town Newhall streetscaping for the benefit of businesses there (and they have the gall to complain about this gift from we the people)
• The 21 point economic recovery plan, the vast majority of which is aimed at helping local businesses, not necessarily residents and employees
• Hosted various seminars training businesses on “Marketing and Sales” and “Customer Service” in recessionary times
• Worked with the Sheriff’s station to create something called the City of Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Business Alliance Program, which teaches businesses how to avoid crime
• Spent $180,000 on purchase of specialized “ProjectDox” software that streamlines development and permit applications for businesses
• Passed & enforced ordinances targeting mobile food and flower vendors because they compete with local businesses
• Named Most Business Friendly city in LA County in 2008
• The local Sheriff’s Station conducted a sting operation to cite and/or arrest 29 contractors without official licenses on behalf of local businesses & contractors

As Councilwoman Laurie Ender pointed out, the goals and deliverables of the new SCV Economic Development Corporation are just about as clear as mud. An example: astoundingly, in the Agenda Item on the SCVEDC, one of the deliverables promised in return for our $200,000 is “marketing of the Think Santa Clarita Valley campaign,” which is itself a marketing campaign. So for $200k, the new SCVEDC is going to market an existing marketing campaign.

Indeed, many of the deliverables listed in that item are already being done by the City’s own Economic Development program, which has its own fancy website here. I wonder if some City Hall workers now have to worry about their jobs?

So what exactly are we going to get in exchange for $200,000 in seed money? Bill Kennedy, Chamber President, said in October that the EDC will help “focus various elements of the city for the benefit of local business.” I hate to sound like a teenager but, seriously? As if it wasn’t already! Just look at the list above.

I suppose we will get one thing though. Larry Rasmussen, a powerful local developer, and Don Fleming, car king, say the $200,000 will ensure the SCVEDC can hire a top-notch executive director who will somehow pull all these programs & incentives together and integrate them all into one big gooey ball of business-friendliness. That, in turn, will attract new businesses, and, the SCV Business Class says, new jobs.

Only there are no concrete deliverables. No word about what type of jobs will be created (Nail salons, dry cleaners, big box retailers and fast food joints tend not to pay people living wages). No guaranteed return for the taxpayer’s investment.

One final note: It’s interesting to contrast all the business-support activities the City has done in the last year and this new effort with the (apparent) quiet work that Los Angeles County did in attracting Disney Studios to the Golden Oak ranch. Supervisor Antonovich and his staff, according to one source, secretly worked their voodoo to help Disney to build studios in our valley, and just like that, one day in October, the news that Disney was going to bring 3,000 jobs to town shocked and surprised us.