Barlavi is first to announce City Council run

SIGNAL FILE PHOTO: David Barlavi speaks at the Saugus Election forum held in James Foster Elementary School Thursday, September 13, 2018. Eddy Martinez/The Signal.
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Dave Barlavi, a Valencia tax attorney, recently announced he’s running for the Santa Clarita City Council in 2022, when three spots on the council will appear on the ballot. 

Barlavi, a member of the Saugus Union School District governing board, told The Signal he’s offered everything he has had to offer to the school district. 

“I think I’ve contributed all I can for the school board. I brought all my ideas,” he said. “I feel really good about what I’ve accomplished there and I don’t see it’s going to go in a wrong direction.” 

Barlavi, a Santa Clarita resident since 2004, said he’s running for City Council because of the “homogeny in thinking” among its current five members. 

“I can bring a lot more to City Council because even though they do good work … they just make a lot of mistakes … that shouldn’t be made,” he said, noting that those mistakes are a result of the council’s “group think.” 

Barlavi cited supporting the placement of large electronic billboards in the city — a policy he helped to defeat in 2014 at the ballot box. He also mentioned the council’s decisions to invite the National Guard during protests last summer and joining a lawsuit challenging California’s sanctuary law as mistakes. 

Barlavi called himself a “great problem-solver” and identified support for microbusinesses, children with developmental disabilities and overdevelopment as top campaign priorities. 

“City Council seems to be focused on bringing big, ginormous conglomerate corporations to town,” he said. “We need to focus on our mom-and-pop businesses. Those are the real employers in town.” 

Santa Clarita, he said, could become a city that takes care of its developmentally disabled residents when they become adults. 

“That’s a very powerful thing for a city, to say we don’t abandon our children just because they grow up,” Barlavi said. 

Barlavi said overdevelopment is ruining the environment in Santa Clarita. 

“The only thing we’re doing is building $800,000 homes and that’s, that’s (going to) ruin our environment and kill our housing prices without really solving any of our problems,” he said, mentioning problems like traffic and affordable housing options for low-income families and the city’s young adults. 

Barlavi was the first person to announce his candidacy for the Santa Clarita City Council in 2022. The filing period for this race has not yet been announced.  

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