After contentious session, council’s split vote grants Weste’s request
The Santa Clarita City Council’s ouster of Denise Lite from the city Planning Commission sets the stage for a contentious 2026 council election season, one for which Lite has already announced her candidacy, in the wake of her removal from the commission on Tuesday night.
The council’s decision came after a marathon session of public input in which more than two dozen community members stepped up to the podium in council chambers to provide their input on Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste’s request to bounce Lite from the commission.
The vast majority of them opposed the move, but their comments did not sway the majority of council members — Mayor Bill Miranda, Councilwoman Patsy Ayala and Weste — who prevailed in a 3-2 vote. Councilman Jason Gibbs and Councilwoman Marsha McLean dissented.
The vote was met with a chorus of boos and a few loud comments: “Shame on you,” hollered one member of the audience. “Congratulations on turning your back on the people.”
The outbursts prompted Miranda to warn the audience that he would order the room cleared if decorum were not restored.
The warning was moot. The crowd left.
Lite cut off mid-comment
Among those speaking in defense of keeping Lite on the commission was Lite herself, and she got about halfway through her prepared statement before she hit the three-minute public input time limit and Miranda told her that her time was up.
“Can I finish please?” Lite asked the mayor.
“No, you may not,” he replied.
After Lite stepped away from the podium, Miranda interjected before the next speaker began talking. The mayor said he wanted to point out that “I allowed the commissioner two extra minutes at the last meeting (June 24), and that was out of order. So, I may apologize but I am holding everybody to the three minutes tonight.”
In the comments Lite was allowed to deliver, she outlined the portions of the Santa Clarita Municipal Code and the council’s own norms and procedures that, she said, bolstered her argument that she should not be removed.
Under those codes, norms and procedures, council members nominate appointees to city commissions, subject to ratification by the council, and technically the commissioners serve at the pleasure of the entire council. Weste nominated Lite in September, after Weste’s previous appointee, Dennis Ostrom, abruptly retired from the role in August.
On Wednesday, Lite provided The Signal with a written copy of her comments, including the roughly 600 words she was not allowed to complete in her own defense before the council voted.
In those remaining comments, Lite had planned to take issue with Weste’s contention that the councilwoman had a difficult time communicating with Lite.
“Like most of you, I see Council Member Weste at no less than four events per month, whether it be a charity event for one of our amazing nonprofits, a city function, a chamber event, etc.,” Lite’s prepared comments read. “That means I have seen her a minimum of at least 25 times at public events since September 2024 when the council unanimously appointed me. Not once during those in-person encounters did she raise concerns about our communications or request a meeting, nor has she ever requested an ‘update on projects’ as she claimed she needed to serve her constituents when she gave her reason for removing me. In fact, I saw her at all-commission/all-council joint budget study session at City Hall on April 29 and she did not address me with any concerns. She didn’t address me at all.”
Lite said that Weste did, however, call her in advance of a Planning Commission meeting in which the commission was to consider The Hartwell, a mixed-use project in Old Town Newhall.
Phone records from Lite and the city, in response to a California Public Records Act request from The Signal, show the eight-minute phone call Lite received from Weste, who, in addition to being a council member, is also a member of the board of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.
“With regard to the phone call that I referenced at the last meeting: On March 14, 2025, Council Member Weste called me,” Lite said in the written copy of her comments that she did not finish delivering at the meeting before Miranda cut her off. “She asked me if I received the Historical Society letter in my agenda packet for the upcoming Planning Commission meeting. I told her I didn’t know because I had not checked my emails. She then spoke for several minutes how the Hartwell was a fantastic project and gave her perspective on how Hartwell should be swiftly approved. Within her comments she included very strong, biting criticism of city staff for how the project was being handled, stating, ‘No one on staff knows what they are doing and that the only reason things have happened and continue to happen in this city, are because of me, and that is why I have not retired.’”
Lite’s written comments added: “I was shocked, but I continued to listen. When she was done, Council Member Weste asked me to call her back after I had checked my emails to let her know if I had received the agenda packet and — notably — to specifically let her know if I received the letter from the Historical Society. I agreed to call her back. Council Member Weste’s claim of lack of communication over nine months does not at all align with the facts. If communication was truly a concern, it was never expressed to me – not in person over the 24-plus times I have seen her since September, not in email and in a followup to our phone conversation March 14.”
The Signal reported on March 20 that a council member had privately negotiated a deal with the developer in which the builder would have paid $750,000 to the city to offset the demolition of the former Newhall courthouse building, which previously was deemed by the city to be historically significant.
Those private negotiations first came to light publicly during the Planning Commission’s March 18 meeting, during which the developer’s representative told the commission he worked out a deal with a City Council member — but during the meeting he did not identify which council member it was.
“What do you mean the negotiated impact fee?” asked Lite, after Jason Tolleson, principal for the project, mentioned it to the commission.
“Um, I talked to a council member about it, who spoke with the city manager, and we worked out something that seemed reasonable,” Tolleson said.
The Signal later confirmed that it was Weste.
Lite has since contended that Weste’s request for her to be removed from the commission was political retribution for the questions she asked about the Hartwell and another project in Newhall.
The now-former planning commissioner also provided a copy of the letter she says Weste sent her via email on June 18: “This is to inform you that I am requiring your resignation from the city of Santa Clarita’s Planning Commission effective immediately. Please submit your resignation by 5 p.m. Friday, June 20.”
Lite replied: “Hello Laurene. I am very surprised to receive this from you. May I ask why?”
Lite, a family law attorney who came in fourth in the 2022 Santa Clarita City Council race, has indicated her intention to run for the city’s District 2, which covers much of Valencia and parts of Newhall, in the November 2026 election.
Council comments
In Tuesday’s council discussion, Weste said the “why” is simple, and she reiterated that it’s not personal, nor is it political: It’s about communication.
“I applaud the effort to stand up for the people that you care about and you believe in,” she said to the members of the audience who had shown up in Lite’s defense.
“There are no aspersions here whatsoever on Denise, on her talent, on her ability, on her right to speak and bring up what she thinks. This is literally just a matter of having an appointee for me that I can work with and communicate with, which is what I have with every other appointee I’ve had.”
Speaking to her fellow council members, she said she was just asking them for consideration in the interest of effective communication.
“I don’t believe I am asking anything of the City Council other than the courtesy that I would extend to you if you felt that you did not feel confident in working with one of your appointees, and so that’s really why we’re here. It’s not about anything else and I wish Denise all the very best in her endeavors.”
Weste added: “It’s just that I need to have a commissioner that I can work with, an appointee that wants to talk to me.”
Gibbs said that, while he agreed it was fair to agendize the request so it could be discussed, he did not agree that the situation rose to the level of justifying the removal of a commissioner.
“It would take, for me, it takes a very extreme situation to suggest the removal of a commissioner,” Gibbs said before the vote. “So, when it was brought forward today it was to have this discussion of, what is it we were going to hear that, was there something unethical, was there something illegal, was there something that had happened in the Planning Commission since Ms. Lite’s appointment that is harmful to the city or puts us in a bad position?”
He added that no such item had been brought forth.
“And based on the input that I have heard so far tonight, the answer is no,” he said. “The comment was, there is an apparent unwillingness to work with a particular council member on issues. For all those who know Ms. Lite, that is a true mischaracterization of who she is in this community.”
Gibbs added: “There has been nothing provided that would make me suggest this is the right move.”
McLean — who would join Gibbs on the dissenting side of the 3-2 vote — expressed the same sentiment.
“I strongly believe that each one of us should be able to have the commissioner of our choice, but it is not the right thing to do to remove a commissioner just for speaking out,” McLean said. “In order to remove someone from the commission, I strongly believe there has to be a very good, specific evidence of wrongdoing, and I haven’t seen one.”
Also speaking before the vote, Ayala said her decision would be based on what’s best for the city to move forward, and was not personal or political.
“Throughout this process I have listened carefully to all sides,” Ayala said. “After careful review of the city rules and the facts of this case, I believe the most constructive path forward is to honor the request and removal so we can start fresh.”
Her comment drew jeers from the audience, and Miranda called for order.
Ayala added: “When the working relationship between a council member and their appointed commissioner has irreparably broken down, it impacts our ability to serve the public effectively.”
