Greetings! I hope that you and your family enjoyed a happy holiday season.
It is my honor to serve as your Mayor this year. For those of you who may not know me, I have served as a City Councilmember for the last 12 years. I started my career with the City even before cityhood by serving on the City formation committee. I was then selected as one of the original members of the City’s first Parks Commission. I have always had a passion for trails, parks and open space for your community. I am very proud of the progress our City and its partners have made with regard to our trails, paseos, parks, open space and recreation facilities over the last two decades.
In keeping with our healthy lifestyle here in Santa Clarita, we will soon be re-launching our Healthy Santa Clarita website with a host of great information for you and your family to plug into living healthy and green in Santa Clarita. Fun projects and programs like community gardens, special bike rides and hikes, camping and backpacking, as well as local opportunities to recycle and properly dispose of everything from old prescriptions and needles, to manure and e-waste. Stay tuned for more information on this exciting program!
2010 promises to be another amazing year for the City of Santa Clarita. This year, we will continue our responsible, financial commitments to the community to retain a 15 percent operating reserve spend within our means, deliver a well though-out, on-time City budget that provides for ample public input. Please check our website at santa-clarita.com for a copy of our current City budget, budgets from years past, and to sign up for any meetings or public hearings on the City’s budget.
I am very pleased that this year, we will begin construction of a new and larger library in Old Town Newhall, as well as embark upon phase two of the Old Town Newhall streetscape project. We will be underway for our first passive park, Discovery Park in Canyon Country and we will open our first sand volleyball court at the Sports Complex, complimenting the other amazing amenities this facility offers. Also this year, we will be working on a project to link the Pacific Crest Trail on the east side of our Valley, to the Ventura County line near the Santa Clarita River. Our City is in receipt of a Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance grant that will go a long way towards making this happen.
Another great project this year that will help improve our quality of life in Santa Clarita includes a traffic signal synchronization project that will be completed in early March at over 130 locations in the City. This project will improve traffic flow city wide and also incorporate the new real-time traffic information system on our City website so motorists can find out about construction and traffic incidents to identify alternate routes before they encounter them on the roads.
I want to personally invite you to share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions with me. Your input is invaluable to our City Council and we appreciate when you take the time to let us know your thoughts. I can be reached at City Hall at 661-255-4395 or via email at lweste@santa-clarita.com .
Sincerely, Laurene Weste, Mayor