The Santa Clarita City Council has an election on the books that’s guaranteed to bring new names and faces to City Hall, with two incumbents not seeking re-election — and the council hopefuls had a chance to tell the voters what they bring to the table Wednesday night in The Signal’s candidate forum.
In the city’s second-ever district-based election, city voters will get to choose their representative for areas 2, 4 and 5 — a facet highlighted in some answers and eschewed by others.
District 2, the city’s westernmost, runs along Interstate 5 and the city boundary north to the Rye Canyon Road business park, south along the Santa Clara River, then east along Soledad Canyon Road to Golden Valley Road before turning south to Newhall. The open seat has three candidates: Brett Haddoak, Denise Lite and Gloria Mercado-Fortine.
District 4’s western boundary is Copper Hill and Northpark drives in Valencia. It runs east along the city’s northern border to District 5 in Canyon Country, with the Santa Clara River, just north of Soledad Canyon Road, as its southern edge.
There is no incumbent because it’s the district’s first election, but Mayor Laurene Weste is running, along with Jeffrey Berman, Valerie Bradford, Nick Somers and Peter Yahiayan. Neither Somers nor Yahiayan were present for Wednesday’s forum hosted by The Signal at the Canyon Theatre Guild in Newhall.
District 5 voters live east of districts 1 and 4, along the city’s eastern edge and south into parts of Newhall, but not much north of Via Princessa. Lilia Chernova, Kelvin Driscoll and Bob Khalsa are running.
The candidates were asked questions about what the city’s core values should be and their two biggest problems in Santa Clarita and their solutions, and a new controversial housing plan on the east side, Belcaro Sand Canyon, among other issues.
District 2
The candidates for the district brought several different perspectives to the table Wednesday, but there were some similarities in their answers.
Haddoak described himself as a parent, small-business owner and software engineer; Mercado-Fortine a retired educator and former Santa Clarita Valley school board member; and Lite as a family law attorney, business owner and parent.
When asked what the city’s values should be in four words, Haddoak, Lite and Mercado-Fortine all mentioned safety and community.
Lite also mentioned opportunity and understanding; Mercado-Fortine also mentioned transparency and listening; and Haddoak also mentioned family and transparency.
There was a little more separation in the candidates when it came to their views on the two biggest issues.
Haddoak mentioned Flock Safety, the company with which the city contracts for traffic-surveillance cameras, which has been the subject of privacy and oversight concerns brought to City Hall. He also mentioned a second hospital. “We’re not a small town anymore. We have a quarter-million people, and every time a new development is talked about in town, the social media comments are popping off saying we need a second hospital,” he said. “Anything less would be ‘malfeasance and abdication of duty.’”
Mercado-Fortine shared a common refrain for the city that sees a majority of people commute outside for work: “traffic, traffic, traffic,” as well as support to keep pace with growth. “We need to have roads, especially those … cross-city connectors … so we do have to build (the Dockweiler Drive extension), and obviously Via Princessa. But even with that, it’ll help a lot, but we’re growing, and so we have to kind of take it back to our infrastructure.”
Lite also mentioned traffic and infrastructure. “We have three major connectors that are not connected: Magic Mountain Parkway, Santa Clarita Parkway and Via Princesa. These connectors have to be built before we keep putting development in,” she said.
In terms of development, she said the city has only approved a fraction of its affordable-housing allocation from the state, with about three years left to meet its numbers. “That’s a big concern,” she said.
Questions about Belcaro Sand Canyon, a 341-home senior housing development proposed for the special standards district, drew strong opinions and a recognition of nuance in the situation.
“California has a housing shortage, and we are getting undermined by the state on zoning rules regularly,” Haddoak said. “With that said, there used to be a bridge exactly where that housing development is that goes right across the Santa Clara River. They should build that bridge instead of congesting Sand Canyon further.”
Lite mentioned being on the Planning Commission when the project was first introduced and hearing concerns about the traffic study used.
“It could be a lovely project, but maybe that’s not the right spot for it,” she said. “It’s very concerning that it is surrounded by brush. I would be very concerned as a homeowner getting elderly citizens out in case of emergency.”
Mercado-Fortine called for it to be modified.
“I know there’s a lot of concerns from the community there,” she said. “It is a beautiful rural community, and they like to keep that character. On the other hand, we do need … housing, but I think they have many concerns that need to be addressed and mentioned here.”
District 4
Berman, Bradford and Weste were the three candidates seeking to represent District 4, who had a little more variety on their core values for the city.
Asked to express them in four words, Berman said, “Transparency, leadership, accountability and family. And I think family goes at the top.”
Bradford said the core values should be “listening and valuing residents,”
Weste went over the four-word maximum, but said, “safety, opportunity in nature, retention of the family community and listening to everyone on those issues.”
In terms of two things she would improve, Weste gave two related items: “Certainly traffic — build needed roads that can meet the needs of Santa Clarita; and of course, I still think we should expand open space around us because that reduces the land area that you can develop. And if you have less development, you will have less traffic.”
Bradford echoed the sentiment on congestion.
“So, ditto on traffic,” Bradford said, calling for an expansion of roads like Bouquet Canyon and Copper Hill. “I also think that what we can do about it is promote our public transportation more.” She also said the city needs more affordable housing, “so that we can keep our residents here working and not on the road, promoting more traffic congestion.”
Berman broke from his fellow District 4 colleagues, mentioning public safety and a new hospital. “We need to open negotiations with the L.A. County supervisors and see what we can do for incentives to boost (deputies’) pay, to get them in here, to fill the positions, to keep us safe,” he said referring to a widely reported countywide shortage of deputies. “I think that’s Santa Clarita’s No. 1 issue. The traffic will work itself out. Safety is priority.”
Bradford called for the housing plan to be modified so there’s an affordable housing element.
“So, if this development (Belcaro) is approved, it needs to address the need for housing that everyone can afford, so that we can keep the individuals that that teach our children, so that they can live here, so that our seniors don’t have to live in their cars, so that our veterans don’t have to be stressed out about where they live,” she said.
Weste said she couldn’t answer directly about Belcaro because the project could be up for her consideration before the end of the year. “But I would say this: We should get everything we can, and everybody in Santa Clarita needs to know that the state of California has passed at least 12 different pieces of legislation that are impacting everything the city does, and it’s restraining us from doing what we need to do in many cases.”
Berman said he’d take a closer look because he thinks the city is growing too fast.
“So I can’t tell you whether we should continue with it, but I’ll tell you one of the things that I would do is stop everything, take a hard look at it, and take a look at the planning. Infrastructure has to come first,” he said. “You cannot build houses, you cannot build any kind of establishment if you haven’t planned for infrastructure.”
District 5
The race for the largely Canyon Country seat also brought three newcomers with pretty different backgrounds to the table on Wednesday, between Chernova, Driscoll and Khalsa.
That came across right away in their answers to the core-values-in-four-words question, which had no overlap this time.
Chernova said, “Prioritize residents above politics.”
Khalsa said they were “accountability, transparency, businesses and community,”
Driscoll offered “innovation, leadership, collaboration and respect.”
In terms of two things he’d improve, Khalsa cited traffic and retention of businesses that are leaving.
“So, as far as traffic is concerned, traffic is not just an inconvenience that we look at once we actually encounter it,” Khalsa said. “You have to look at infrastructure that goes in before or in parallel with the development, because this impacts not only your quality of life, it impacts safety, it impacts your time that you get to spend with the families.” He said in terms of business retention, the city needs to be much more transparent with its permitting process.
Driscoll said he was hearing a lot of things mentioned in the city’s biennial survey, which he questioned as a 10-year resident who’s never been surveyed.
“And if you are looking at what people are coming to City Council to talk about, there’s one issue that is loud and clear,” he said, referring to the anti-Flock Safety commenters, DeFlock SCV. “I think the other thing that they’re looking for us to do is people are having a tough time around affordability right now. Life is just really hard, and that’s an issue that I do think the City Council can be helpful on.”
Belcaro, which would be in District 5, drew objections from each of the candidates.
“We are already absorbing thousands of new homes,” Chernova said, mentioning Vista Canyon, Spring Canyon, Park Place and Riverwalk among the east-side projects going through the city’s approval process. “We need to make sure the infrastructure can support it. Growth must come with roads, schools, evacuation capacity, not years after, before we actually build it. So that’s my opinion.”
Khalsa was critical of the studies and approvals the project has seen so far, referring to safety concerns about the project. “So when you have a development of high density, which affects safety, which affects your traffic, and which creates problems for the people who are living there with their expectations — that’s a major problem — and I would look into that very seriously before even going forward.”
Driscoll said he would modify it, after hearing input from the community.
“Any time we get residents who are coming down to a Planning Commission or a City Council (meeting) as members, we have to take that seriously,” Driscoll said. “And I don’t think that it is a false choice here — that we have to do all or nothing. I think we have an incredible opportunity to engage the community in the planning process.”
