A little more than 50 years ago, in 1975, I accepted a promotion with the airline, TWA, to move from St. Louis to Los Angeles to manage TWA’s regional reservations center. Since I was able to commute on weekends between St. Louis and Los Angeles for several weeks, I made it a point to stay in hotels in several locations in the Southland to evaluate various communities for our future home. When I came upon the beauty of Valencia, I knew this was where I wanted to raise my family. Eventually, I left TWA to accept a vice president position with Princess Cruises in Century City and later in Santa Clarita, all the time residing in Valencia/Santa Clarita. Our first SoCal home was located in the Meadows neighborhood, just off beautiful Orchard Village Road. I was impressed daily with the design and tree-lined beauty of this street.
Sadly, a decision has recently been made to totally spoil the attractiveness of this street with the installation of ugly pylons placed on each side of the road between Lyons Avenue and McBean Parkway. Orchard Village Road, leading directly to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, was never designed, nor intended, to serve as a bicycle pathway. Valencia, and later Santa Clarita, has many bicycle paths and trails for the benefit of cyclists where they do not interfere with daily commuters, emergency vehicles and other vehicular traffic. It would appear that the decision to erect the repugnant pillars on each side of Orchard Village Road was made to satisfy a very fractional number of local citizens to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of Santa Claritans.
To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan’s request of Russia’s president, Mikhail Gorbachev, many years ago, I would ask of Santa Clarita’s mayor, Bill Miranda, “Mr. Miranda, tear down these monstrosities.”
Dennis Fuerst
Santa Clarita