Protesters object to president’s efforts to reduce government waste and fraud
Some Santa Clarita Valley residents were surprised on Saturday afternoon to see what was estimated to be over 2,000 protesters at the corner of McBean Parkway and Valencia Boulevard demonstrating against President Donald Trump’s administration.
Those with signs protesting Trump and Elon Musk, who heads up the Department of Government Efficiency — tasked with eliminating waste in the government — lined Valencia Boulevard in front of the Valencia Town Center mall on both sides of the street, and eventually poured into the Santa Clarita City Hall parking lot for a gathering there.
Valencia resident Jamie Winton, who was with her 16-year-old daughter, said she wasn’t shocked that so many people came out.
“I was waiting to see them get activated,” Winton said. “There was a gathering at the corner maybe a month ago, and I was really happy to see that. I’ve been watching the different protests in L.A., in Simi Valley. We’re starting to see them on the overpasses. I thought, ‘You know what, a few more things needed to happen that personally affect people.’ When certain things happened with the administration — like with the veterans — and certain things got threatened, I knew we’d see this community pull together.”
Winton added that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, and the women’s rights movement of the ’60s and ’70s paved the way to equal rights in America, but since the new presidential administration, she said she’s concerned to see so many of those rights being threatened.
Residents of Newhall, Canyon Country, Castaic, Stevenson Ranch and other nearby areas came out to take part in the demonstration. The event in Valencia was among other protests taking place all over the country, according to organizers of the liberal “Hands Off!” movement.
Forty-plus-year Saugus resident Janet Squires, a teacher and library media specialist with the Saugus Union School District, said she didn’t believe the “Hands Off!” demonstrations were partisan-based.
“I think people have just had it,” she said. “I don’t care whether you’re Republican, Democrat, independent. At this point, people are just so fed up with what they’ve seen happening over the last couple of months. For a while, it was like, ‘Oh well, the liberals are getting what they’ve got coming to them.’ But now everybody’s getting stepped on. It’s going to be your Social Security, your Medicare and your libraries that are closed down.”
Louise Klatt came to the protest with about a dozen fellow members of Unitarian Universalist Church of Santa Clarita to voice their opinions about what she called the current administration’s attacks on social justice in America.
“We care about people on the planet,” Klatt said. “We have concerns about all the cuts in government. We’re very worried. Many of our members rely on Social Security and other programs.”
Canyon Country resident and former member of the Santa Clarita Community College District board of trustees Jerry Danielsen said he was encouraged by the number of folks who came out to express their frustration with the Trump administration.
He said that, on Friday night, 800 people had RSVP’d to join the “Hands Off!” demonstration, adding that over 2,000 showed up, many of whom drove by and saw what was going on, parked and joined in.
“A lot of people feel disempowered, and this is a way to empower people,” Danielsen said. “I feel like this can give permission structure for people who are more timid, because right now, suddenly our economy is in pain, and it’s going to hit home. There are kitchen-table issues at stake.”
Danielsen, like so many others at the protest, spoke about how the government should keep its hands off programs that people depend on. People up and down Valencia Boulevard held signs that echoed those sentiments.
Asked if anyone had come from outside the Santa Clarita Valley to protest on Saturday, groups of people said no. However, some said they had plans of going to the “Hands Off!” demonstration scheduled later in the day in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles.
Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, who was in the Santa Clarita City Hall parking lot after people marched over there from the corner of McBean and Valencia to City Hall, spoke about the concerns protesters were bringing to the demonstration.
“They (the federal government) are cutting 80,000 folks from the (Veterans Administration), but we’re going to fight for veterans,” he said through a bullhorn to a crowd of protesters in front of him. “They’re cutting $808 billion from Medicare, but we’re going to fight for those who depend on Medicare. They’re breaking Social Security, and they’re decimating our retirement plans, but we’re going to fight for our seniors.”
Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, also spoke directly to the people, saying she, too, is fighting to protect the programs that so many rely on. In an interview, she spoke in particular about cuts that affect military veterans.
“There is broad agreement that we don’t want government waste, that we don’t want corruption, that we want the government to be efficient,” she said. “But what they (the Trump administration) are doing is the opposite, that at the end of the day, when you talk about opening up the VA to millions of more veterans who have been poisoned by toxic chemicals when they were serving, and then we’re cutting 85,000 staff who would take care of that, that is not more efficient. The biggest criticism of the VA is that there’s delays. And so, how could it make sense to cut the staff that were cutting down on those delays?”
