The City’s otherwise commendable website, votesantaclarita.com, has a “campaign disclosures” section, but they only post partial forms, omitting all the donors. What’s the point? The city really ought to make make these campaign disclosure forms available online in their entirety. I hope they will in the run up to this election. It’s public information, after all. (Write your councilmember!)

In the meantime, you’ll just have to deal with our sporadic posts. Lucky for me, the most recent filings, covering through June 30, show little activity. Only Bob Kellar raised money in the first half of this year, but he also spent almost all of it during the same period. So in other words, don’t think of this as a progress report, but starting point. As of June 30, here’s where each campaign stood:

• Laurie Ender: $2,473.18
• Bob Kellar: $1,412.49
• TimBen Boydston: $2,926.41
• David Gauny: $209.77

It’s worth noting that Kellar’s June 30th statement lists a $2,000 payment for campaign manager Sharon Bronson, who ran Gauny’s campaign. So I don’t expect David Gauny to run in 2012, but you never know.

Since we only have one candidate and eight donors, I’m going to make my efforts worthwhile and look closely at these donors. Fair warning, what follows is some hair-splitting, disproportionate ridiculousness.

Dick Jefferey of Saugus, retired: $100. Dick is often representing the SCV Veteran’s Memorial Committee and seems like a longtime Friend of Bob.

Andrew Fried of Agua Dulce, retired: $500. Notable for his leadership in the TMC/Cemex mine fight. Andrew donated $150 each to Marsha McLean and Laurene Weste in the 2010 election. He also made history here with the first recorded donation that exceeded the old campaign donation limits. Kellar was the lone dissenting vote against raising these limits, but he’ll certainly benefit under the new law.

The Barnyard of Acton: $1,000. How about that? The first max donation of $1,000 in city history. The Barnyard is that business between Sierra Hwy. & the 14 that sells all those oversized trinkets. This donation isn’t categorized (it should be marked as OTH because it’s a business), but whatever.

William Reynolds of Valencia, retired: $400. Talk about burying the lead! Our old frenemy, Bill Reynolds, star of television and radio, best known to the SCVtalk community for his NotAFerryFan videos. If Bob and Bill are now political allies, that can’t sit well with the rest of council.

Alice Consulting (?) of Stevenson Ranch, $360. This is an odd entry. Two categories are checked, Individual and Recipient Committee, but a donor can only one. It’s undated. If “Alice Consulting” is an individual, there should be an occupation listed, but there isn’t. According to votesantaclarita.com here isn’t a recipient committee listed by that name. According to the Los Angeles County registrar, and the Secretary of State, “Alice Consulting” is not a business name. Google doesn’t fin an “Alice Consulting” in Steventon Ranch, either. But the address on the form matches that of Alice Khosravy, local tea party activist and organizer of the SCV Constitution Day. Not sure who’s responsible for the error here, but they ought to fix it.

George Pederson of Valencia, retired $100. George is a former council member and was our Mayor at the time of the Northridge earthquake. George also gave $100 to David Gauny in 2010.

Spence Leafdale of Canyon Country, LAPD officer: $300. Spence is well-regarded community volunteer who is Kellar’s appointee on the Open Space Preservation District and Accountability Panel. He’s even posted down in the SCVtalk comments from time to time. Last time around, Spence gave the same amount to David Gauny.

John Dortch of Valencia, LA County Assessor’s Office: $100. John ran for the COC board in 2009 and for the LA County Assessor in 2010. In the 2010 race, John gave $200 to TimBen Boydston.

And there you have it. This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands. The candidates have held some fundraisers in the second half of this year, so expect to learn a lot more after the December 31 former are filed.

Keep in mind that even through December of 2009, David Gauny had only raised $205, and he wound up nearly winning.

I think the reason why some of us find his candidacy so interesting is that he really represents a different type of candidate. He’s not running so much that he’s upset with the politics of the City Council, but rather because he’s upset with the way things are – the net result of things. Call it “The Rent is Too Damn High” approach.

It fits in with our romantic view of the regular guy who wants to take on City Hall. That makes him a lot more like the average resident than most candidates, who are typically insiders, gadflies at city hall or who run out of self-delusion.

The challenge for nontraditional candidates is that the average resident is less likely to vote than wonks like us. Many of our neighbors aren’t all that mad or scared, either. They look around and like the way things are, and they just want more of the sweet stuff: parks, trails, pools, sports, concerts, etc.. These are your Laurie Ender voters, in a nutshell.

With a wild-eyed anti-crime platform,Hatami is after a different type of resident. It’s an interesting angle and there are plenty of people who will eat it up, so I think he’ll find a niche. But even if I agreed with his policy goals, I think there’s a problem at the core of this kind of candidacy that transcends ideology.

There is, as Tim mentioned, a problem with those of us “in the weeds” where our view of what’s possible isn’t broad enough. But if we make some slight adjustments to our thinking, it isn’t too difficult to separate our cynicism from our informed sense of what can and can’t be done within the boundaries that our city council operates.

A lot of Hatami’s proposals simply aren’t achievable because there are genuinely immovable pieces that stand in the way. It might be the budget, jurisdiction, state law, federal law, the constitution or just political reality.

He’s offering solutions that over-promise on outcomes, solutions to problems that don’t exist and solutions to things already solved.

What’s wrong with a little dreaming? Don’t we want someone who thinks big? Sure, but there’s a line between thinking big and having your head in the clouds. There’s a line between populism and pandering. There’s a real problem when your campaign is built on promises that you can’t deliver. If you are playing to the average, uninformed resident, you really shouldn’t come selling a bill of goods or re-selling us things we’ve already bought.

It’s been said by many and I think it’s true here as much as anywhere: politics is the art of the possible. Work within the limits of your power, compromise as needed, do the best with what you have.

It should go without saying, because usually it does. Our council and the notable challengers over the years, despite their policy disagreements, get it.

Say what you will about David Gauny (and I’ve said plenty), but he understands the rules of the game. Jon Hatami has brought a hockey stick to a game of chess.

The game isn’t unknowable and Hatami might learn it in time, if he cares to. When he learns the rules it might not even want to play. Until then, I’m taking a pass on Team Hatami.

We learned something at last week’s Council meeting. It takes just a few cranks during Public Comments to derail/delay a City plan to sign onto a largely ceremonial set of environmental principles, yet when hundreds of people show up, three lawsuits are filed, and multiple people voice their outrage in newspapers, blogs, and public forums about ….you know what…the public is ignored, the item is approved, and we’re told to get over it and move on.

It should be the exact opposite right? In the grand scheme of things there’s not much the City of Santa Clarita and its five council members can do to stop the scheming, malevolent United Nations and its jackbooted henchmen. But they could have at least slowed down that thing we’ve been talking about for a year because people had real concerns about it.

Whether Huff’s account of what happened in the SCV is strictly accurate is beside the point. Perception is reality in politics, and the perception is that Santa Clarita’s seizure of the COLA library system was hasty, against popular opinion, and poorly executed. To other cities in California pondering library privatization and to boosters (and providers!) of privatized government services, Santa Clarita’s process has to be a case study in what not to do.

Maybe that explains why Mayor Marsha McLean penned that spin-tastic column last week in the Pasadena Star News. The City has to rehabilitate its image state-wide, or to put it more vulgarly and keep with the stink  theme, polish the turd.

In any event, Huff’s prescription for such bad decisions is to vote the bastards out of office. We know that won’t happen here next year  because incumbents are virtually invulnerable, which is  what enabled the City to bulldoze this through in the first place.

But let’s say it could. Let’s say all the people who were upset about the library take over got together and elected two or three new Councilmembers.

The problem is, at that point, the libraries are still privatized. And it’s a major hassle and very disruptive to go back. Very few government services that have been privatized ever go back to being truly public. Even with three new Councilmembers and a sympathetic Bob Kellar, going back to COLA (or firing LSSI & hiring real city employees) would be a difficult task.

That’s why I think AB 438 is a good bill, even if it does remove some local control. The cities should have to jump through extra hoops before they do something radical, controversial and anti-democratic like Santa Clarita did.

First off, College of the Canyons administrators are getting raises….$400,000 worth in fact, even as students face fee and tuition hikes for classes next year and the college reconfigures the way it charges for extension-type courses:

Despite a hefty tuition increase for students, the top dogs at College of the Canyons may be in for a raise.

The Santa Clarita Community College District is poised to approve a 6 percent pay increase over two years for most campus administrators and managers, officials said.

District trustees will vote on the pay package tonight. Like other community colleges, tuition at COC will increase from $26 to $36 a unit this fall.

“It’s fair,” said district spokesman John McElwain. “In these times, I’ll be the first to say it’ll raise an eyebrow. “But it’s to create equity among our employee groups.”

Unlike other faculty and staff at College of the Canyons, most administrators and managers haven’t seen a pay bump in four years, he said.

The nearly $400,000 increase in pay for 76 top officials will put their salaries on par with similar administrators across the state.

COC points out that it has also “shed five top administrative jobs for a savings of $650,000,” which means the College is outlaying $238,000 less overall.

But if giving raises at a time of national austerity and belt tightening makes you raise your eyebrows, what do you think about old school, and I mean really old school, nuns lecturing City Hall, possibly in flawless Latin vulgate? Fellow papist I Heart has more from last night’s Council meeting in which the Latin-loving/John XXIII-hating folks at Newhall’s Queen of Angels church issued a fatwa decree against the City’s Historic Preservation ordinance (which exempts religious buildings but mistakenly included their church on the list of SCV historical properties):

Nearly two dozen parishioners and members of religious orders still took to the podium, arguing that Queen of Angels should not be forced to accept the burdens associated with being designated as a historic landmark. They wouldn’t be so designated, by all assurances, and Kellar asked that a letter be drafted to put this in writing. I didn’t find their repetitive remarks too annoying, perhaps because I’m Catholic (though not the QOA sort of Catholic), but also because they were rightly suspicious of why their church was still on the list of buildings to designate and because they thought other property owners shouldn’t have to endure burdens either

One wonders if OLPH was responsible for the mix-up.

Staying on religion and local government, I just had a vision of Petz’ next push to mix church and state. He successfully compelled the City to remove its irony quotes from “In God We Trust,” but if Lancaster is any indication, he’s behind the curve:

A federal judge has ruled that officials in a Los Angeles County city can open city meetings with a prayer.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer ruled Monday in favor of Lancaster officials who approved a policy allowing the prayers in August 2009.

The city also put the question to voters, who passed the policy to allow prayers of any denomination or faith at city meetings.

Mayor R. Rex Parris said Tuesday that the city takes pride in defending the rights of citizens to pray.

Remember R. Rex Parris? Whenever you’re feeling down about the coziness in this town among the GOBN, go and have a look at his glowing, angelic official biography on the City of Lancaster’s site. Parris, you’ll recall, told the AV Press last year that he viewed the City of Lancaster as a growing “Christian Kingdom,” and he’s been pushing for prayer at City Council meetings ever since. Now, a court has said that’s ok, as long as it’s non-denominational prayer.

That’s just the thing we need to make Santa Clarita Council meetings even more interesting and entertaining: prayer.

Pursuant to Santa Clarita Municipal Code 2.04.030, any member or other person using profane, vulgar, loud or boisterous language at any meeting or otherwise interrupting the proceedings, who refuses to be seated or keep quiet when ordered to do so by the Mayor or other presiding officer of the Council, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Pursuant to Government Code Section 54957.9, the Mayor has legal power and responsibility to preserve order and decorum; prevent demonstrations; order removed from Council Chambers any person whose conduct he/she deems objectionable; and order the Board Room cleared whenever he/she shall deem it necessary.

I think this is appropriate and is probably on next week’s Council Agenda because certain Councilmembers have complained lately how maligned and victimized they feel during Council meetings.

They have a point. If you can’t criticize a decision without criticizing the decision maker, you’ve already lost the debate. On the other hand, if you’re an elected official, you have to expect that some part of your job will be dealing with the crazies, the hangers-on, the chronic complainers and busybody bloggers like me. So they should develop a tougher skin and not feel so hurt.

You can’t legislate against people like that, so the staff presents something like this, that authorizes actions for disturbances. But, for as many as Council meetings as I’ve attended in person or watched online, I don’t remember that many loud and boisterous disturbances or demonstrations. Sure there were some during the Mayo debate, during the library debate, and in other instances, but overall, people at the Council meetings are generally reserved and/or lulled to sleep by the time public comments rolls around.

I do however remember some epic TimBen/Frank Ferry show downs that involved shouting. But I don’t consider that a disturbance; that’s entertainment!

AGENDA

and how it appeared just a year or two ago in this aerial shot from Bing maps:

In this shot you can clearly see the old, run down auto yard on the corner of Railroad and Lyons. For years the auto yard was covered on the south side by a ratty old fence and a strip of torn plastic that would flutter in the wind. Now that building and the nasty fence is gone.

The same is true for the dog groomer/piercing shop that sat at the west end of Spruce street. The City went through a lot of hassle to get that property and tear it down; in the end I think the owner walked away with some cash.

When the demolition crew went through the area about a year ago, they managed to leave the old Newhall jailhouse untouched; you can see it in the latest shot cocooned safely out of the construction zone. The building that was immediately adjacent was another car parts store.

And of course the Hart theater/American Legion hall has been spared.

So what will the Newhall library look like once it’s all built out? We’ve already seen the PDF interior renderings (quite impressive with lots of local tie-ins) but what about the landscaping and outside?

I pinged the City and here’s what the site plan looks like:

This being Santa Clarita, where we feel entitled to free & convenient car storage everywhere and at all times, most of the rest of the lot will be parking.

But you can kind of see hints of a nice courtyard area north of the library  between the old jail  house and the American legion building. The south side of the building will but up against Lyons Avenue and face down Main Street.

Indeed, another site plan, this one in color but seemingly older (the parking lot is smaller) shows a courtyard on the northside with a nice water feature:

Intriguingly, this site plan shows an “Obelisk/Feature” on the south side at the junction of Lyons & Main Street. Will this be the location of Laurie Ender’s Ronald Reagan statue? The obelisk from 2001? A statue promoting reading and literacy? A monument establishing Newhall’s dominance and grandeur over all? Your guess is as good as mine.

Early on people were nay-saying the design of the library because the front faces north to 11th street rather than south to Main Street, which the library is supposed to anchor. But there clearly will be a south/Lyons Side entrance to the facility and it looks like plenty of shade and an attractive median to boot. I think that’s a fair compromise.

Petz writes:

Long time readers of SCVTALK.COM will remember the dismay that Petz felt when  our national motto was displayed in council chambers within quotation marks. Petz felt that this was not appropriate since without any other   reference they appeared to be “scare” quotations, a literary device  meant to convey a sarcastic message or one of disbelief.

Late last week, Petz sent an email to all the city council members reiterating the points of my presentation, asking for specific action to remove the quotation marks and have the display conform to the letter and spirit of the agenda item from two years ago.

Early this week, Petz was contacted by a council member and advised that his argument was meritorious and that a correction to the display would be made.  On Friday morning, Petz slipped into the council chambers and spent some quiet time observing these powerful words. no longer constrained within the punctuation marks which cast a dark shadow across their meaning

It is an important lesson to others  that the city council is willing to take corrective action when an appeal has merit.Petz thanks the city council for their respectful consideration of his request.  Henceforth, the display of our national motto in Santa Clarita will conform to that on our coins and currency, and the dramatic display over the speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives.  Credit must also be given to Jeff’s brother whose reporting on my lonely appeal the next morning helped to overcome some initial despair about wasting my time.

Now if we can just get an exclamation mark put at the end    

In God We Trust !

To be honest, I’ll miss the quotes. I enjoyed using air quotes with my fingers when I talked about the wall of the Council Chamber (which is something you do often if you blog about the SCV). It just added a richness and levity to discussions of City Hall, a sort of insider’s bit of knowledge that separated true SCV geeks from wannabes.

But Petz is right. The quotes were superfluous and cast “a dark shadow across their meaning” so I applaud his activism and its result.  So congrats Petz. This is quite the feather in your cap as you kick off your City Council campaign.

• Annexation moves forward for the Vista Canyon area, Jakes Way and several other parts of east Canyon Country
• Another $200,000 in taxpayer dollars to fund the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation, which, it should be admitted, is at least doing good demographic work on behalf of our community
• No surprise here: the City staff recommends the Council oppose a Legislative bill that would require cities who want to privatize former County libraries to hold public votes before such action is taken. The staff notes that the bill wouldn’t have an impact on Santa Clarita as we already got away with it. But we all know this bill (AB 438) is happening because of what Santa Clarita did last summer.
• Finally: And so it came to pass that one day, the wise elders of Santa Clarita decided to construct a real median on the roadway known as Lyons Avenue, adjacent to I-5 and Hamburger Hill. And there was much rejoicing among the natives for the clueless I-5 travelers will be restricted in where they are allowed to go by a “raised landscape median” from I-5 to 800 feet east on treacherous Lyons for a cost to the kingdom of only $209,000 gold coins. Woe unto the travellers who attempt a left turn onto Lyons from Vincenzo’s. Insha’Allah, Amen, and L’chaim!
• Bus cameras coming to the City’s commuter buses. Also, old cameras will be replaced on the City’s local transit fleet. Cost? $471k, but it’s funded through stimulus dollars.
• “Thank you Babs” coming to a Paseo banner near you? City to voice official support for Senate Bill 759, Senator Barbara Boxer’s Cemex bill. Cemex is like so last year so if you’re interested in what the bill does, head on over to the staff report and read all about it.