The City of Santa Clarita and the officials who serve it, including city council members Laurene Weste, Frank Ferry, Bob Kellar, Marsha McLean and the newly-appointed Tim Ben Boydston, featured on our cover this month, are celebrating, as they should be. 20 years of growth and development have definitely paid off to make Santa Clarita a healthy, thriving place to live.
It was 1987. The cost of a first-class postage stamp was 22 cents; the N.Y. Giants won the Super Bowl; Prozac was introduced in the United States and The Simpson’s made their television debut on the Fox Network. Ronald Regan was our president, Andy Warhol died and it was an NBA Championship year for the Los Angeles Lakers. Of particular interest to those living in northern Los Angeles County was the birth of a new City, comprised of about 130,000 residents, called Santa Clarita.
It’s been like a fairytale story for Santa Clarita, born December 15, 1987, and building upon success-after-success while carving out a niche as one of California’s top cities.
Most recently, Santa Clarita was named as one of the top five business-friendly cities in Los Angeles, while CNN/Money Magazine named Santa Clarita as its top pick for California cities to live in, ranking it in the top 20 nationwide; a pretty amazing accomplishment for a city just two decades old.
During the past 20 short years, Santa Clarita has compiled an amazing list of achievements benefiting this tight-knit community. Among the benefits of Cityhood are the beautiful community parks and trails, three Metrolink stations, sports and transit facilities, new roads like the Cross Valley Connector, a responsive local government, increased Sheriff’s services, curbside recycling programs, local representation on major issues like preventing a dump in pristine Elsmere Canyon and working to stop a mega-mining plan in Soledad Canyon. Keeping 100 percent of locally- generated tax dollars in the community is yet another perk.
Since the incorporation of the City of Santa Clarita, the City has created 17 new parks, more than 30 miles of off-street trails for non-motor use, a state of the art aquatics center, a skate and bike park, as well as an extensive activities and recreation schedule. The City has also hosted 13 Cowboy Festivals at the Melody Ranch picture studios, only open to the public during this time.
Other accomplishments in the past two decades include; widening Soledad Canyon Road from four to six lanes, the opening of the McBean transfer station, the Santa Clarita Sports Complex, the new Golden Valley Road in Canyon Country, the Canyon Country Jo Anne Darcy Library, the Santa Clarita Transit Bus System and Metrolink Stations in Santa Clarita, Via Princessesa and Newhall.
The City has accumulated a list of accomplishments this past year, including being named as one of the best places to live in the United States. Santa Clarita was the only California city in the top 20 for the 2006 CNN/Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live” ranking. Santa Clarita’s high quality of life, access to leisure and cultural activities, high employment rates and beautiful weather were all factors in making the City a top pick. Other awards received this past year have included the first ever “Most Business Friendly City” award, California’s newest Enterprise Zone city title and the coveted “Tree City USA” Award by the National Arbor Day Foundation for the sixteenth consecutive year.
Last winter, the City opened the $7 million state-of-the-art Newhall Community Center on Market Street, which features more than 17,000 square feet of recreation, an award-winning boxing program, a ballet folklorico program, homework help, a toy library, a Sheriff’s sub-station, outdoor basketball, a performance area, eight program rooms, a kitchen, offices and plenty of parking.
Spring 2006 was busy with the grand opening of the Canyon View Regional Trail, the first phase of the Discovery Park Project, which will include the development of 25 acres of parkland for recreational use. Soon after, the City celebrated the grand opening of the City’s new Transit Maintenance Facility in the Rye Canyon Industrial Park. The Transit Maintenance Facility is a state of the art “green” building, which allows the City to house, maintain and clean its fleet of buses, saving the City more than $1 million annually.
The Amgen Tour of California named Santa Clarita as one of the 12 host cities for the February 2007 event. The tour is a world-class cycling event with hundreds of professional cyclists racing through 650 Miles of California Roadway in an eight-Day Race.
The City of Santa Clarita is always looking for ways to make the City a better place to live, work, play and visit. Some major projects to watch for in the upcoming year include, the development of a unique shopping center in the Canyon Country area, the revitalization of Old Town Newhall, the development of the new 32-acre Todd Longshore Park, the newest phase of the Cross Valley Connector which bridges the I-5/126 to Copperhill and Rye Canyon Roads and the next phase of the Santa Clarita Sports Complex, which includes outdoor basketball courts, a skate park expansion and a new gymnasium.
With all of the growth over the past 20 years and a successful track record of improvements, residents of the Santa Clarita Valley should indeed be glowing from it’s A-plus quality and remain hopeful that the City will continue to serve them well in the future, insuring a safe and exciting place for them to live, work, play and raise families in, for many more years to come.