Around 100 Santa Clarita Valley residents with megaphones and recall Gavin Newsom banners and flags stood on the lawn of a Valencia car dealership Thursday following a false rumor that the governor would be attending an event at the dealership.
“(Newsom) is not coming. He wasn’t invited. We have no idea where the rumor started,” Jeff Skobin, vice president of business operations at Galpin Motors, said as he looked on at protesters outside the Porsche dealership. “We respect people’s right to protest. It’s just a shame that we’re having our guests being cursed at.”
Saugus resident Carrie Durden, who used a megaphone to call for Newsom to “come out and face us,” was among those who believed the event was, in fact, Newsom-sponsored.
“I don’t agree with the state that we’re in California. There are so many different issues that are going on, and the fact that he’s hosting an event when he expects us to stay home and mask up, is a double standard,” Durden said. “There’s no reason he can’t even come out and talk to us.”
Durden has been with the Recall Newsom movement since the state stay-at-home order was issued in March 2020 and was among a number of participants who said that the handling of the pandemic was one of many reasons they were upset.
Unemployment rates, increased gas prices and the economic downturn were some of the reasons Santa Clarita resident Sandy Pida gave for her support of the recall efforts.
“I can’t afford to buy anything, and it’s not right,” Pida said. “We want Newsom out so badly. … We want our economy back. We want California back.”
Similarly, Santa Clarita resident Pete Nichols said Newsom was doing a terrible job with the state’s economy.
“He’s a hypocrite, and he needs to be voted out of office,” Nichols added. “We heard he was going to be here but it was a good reason to come together as a group and energize (recall efforts) a couple weeks out from the election.”
A couple of SCV Sheriff’s Station deputies were called to the scene to keep protesters off Porsche property and could be seen keeping traffic on Creekside Road moving as protesters in cars stopped to honk and wave flags.
