Scott Wilk was reading the newspaper at 11 years old. His family would look back at those years and tease him, calling him the “regional Alex P. Keaton,” a reference to the high-school-aged character that actor Michael J. Fox played in the 1980s television sitcom “Family Ties” who was known to be passionate about politics.
When Wilk was 13, he and his family took a trip to the State Capitol. It’d have a lasting impact on him.
“We were doing a tour of the Capitol with the docent,” Wilk said during an interview earlier this week. “We were sitting in the gallery of the state Senate, and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
That same year, young Wilk would ride his bike down to the Republican headquarters to stuff envelopes for President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. Soon after, he’d become a precinct captain for the Gerald Ford presidential campaign. Wilk even received a special dispensation to miss school one day to campaign, and he recruited his friends to come and campaign with him.
On Nov. 30, Wilk, 65, finished the end of his second term as a state senator, representing areas in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys. In a column for The Signal, Wilk wrote to those he served, “As I step back from public office, I do so with a deep and abiding love for this community. No matter where I am in the world, Santa Clarita Valley will always be home. Though I may no longer hold a title, I’ll always be your neighbor and your friend.”
Wilk, a longtime SCV resident who’s currently living in Palm Desert, was born and raised in Lancaster. In 1983, he received his bachelor of arts degree in political science from California State University, Bakersfield. While in college, he worked for then-Rep. Bill Thomas. In fact, Wilk said it was due to that job that he ended up at CSUB.
Around that time, he was working on a campaign and needed people to go door to door with the campaign’s message. That’s when he met Vanessa Safoyan, who would later become his wife.
“A friend of mine was one of the ones who’d been hired to go door to door,” Wilk’s wife said. “I had a dress shop in the desert area, but it was pretty slow. It was early — the mall had just opened. And so, my friend came and she said, ‘Hey, a bunch of us are doing this where we have to go tell voters about this initiative that’s on the ballot’ — or whatever it was that was on the ballot — and, ‘Do you want to do it, too?’ I said, ‘Sure.’”
Perhaps it was her Boston Red Sox baseball cap and overalls that caught Wilk’s eye. He said she was just cute. But the two got along well and became very involved in government, something Wilk’s wife and their kids would come to make a part of their family lives together. In fact, Wilk’s wife recalled being pregnant with their daughter, having their son in a stroller, and walking precincts.
In addition to his work in the Senate, Wilk also served two terms in the California State Assembly, on the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital Foundation board of directors, and on the Santa Clarita Community College District board of trustees.
Asked what accomplishments made him most proud, Wilk deferred to his wife. She brought up his water legislation that consolidated all of the local agencies into one, SCV Water, and also his role in co-authoring the California Film and Television Tax Credit.
Wilk added that the work he did for College of the Canyons was equally satisfying.
“Miracles happen on that campus every day,” he said. “It transforms people’s lives. Look at the data: If you graduate from a community college, over your lifetime, you’re going to make $500,000 more than somebody who hasn’t graduated from that. And particularly now, so many of those students are first generation, and so, you’re changing the trajectory of an entire family.”
Wilk talked about when he was first elected to the Assembly, and the chancellor of UCLA at the time had come to speak with him, asking about his education priorities. Wilk told him, “Community college.”
“His jaw dropped,” Wilk said. “Because he was not used to hearing that. But community college is an economic driver in so many communities with the workforce-development things they do.”
Over the years, Wilk has let his values guide him in the work he’s done. He said he felt he was successful in what he accomplished because he listened to others and treated them with respect. You don’t poke them in the eye, he said.
He added that some of the best advice he ever received came from his Assembly predecessor, Cameron Smyth.
“He told me, ‘Try to get to yes,’” Wilk said. “So, it doesn’t mean you get to yes, but you come in with that attitude. That builds a lot of good will. There are a lot of bad bills that I voted for, but they were less bad because the Democrat was willing to take my amendments.”
As for what’s next for Wilk, the now termed-out senator said he’d like to retire, but he knows he won’t. He wants to remain active in fighting for issues he’s passionate about. He’s focused on housing policy — he pointed out that the state doesn’t have a housing crisis, but rather a housing policy crisis.
Wilk also wants to help deal with education reform and workforce development issues.
Today, it’s clear Wilk has come a long way since that family trip to Sacramento when he sat in the gallery of the state Senate and decided what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Thinking of that makes him consider other kids who similarly discover their own passions.
He recalled an incident from 2017, when he was in his second year in the Senate, walking the halls of the Capitol when he spotted a young girl with her grandmother who’d just taken the Capitol tour.
“I said, ‘Hey, let’s go,’” Wilk said. “We did photos, gave her a certificate. It was just a great time. Well, like a year later, I’m at a reception, and I see this guy running across the room. I go, ‘I think he’s coming for me.’ It ends up being the grandfather of that little girl. He said, ‘You made an impact on her life. She wants to go into politics.’”
That girl, Wilk would learn, would become ASB president at Saugus High School, and now, Wilk said, she’s off to college.
Wilk couldn’t help but reflect on his own journey into politics. He teared up at the thought that he had that kind of impact on another, on someone who just might go on to serve others the way he did for Santa Claritans for so many years.
