RECAP: Kellar Critics, Budget, Car Spies
At tonight’s Santa Clarita City Council meeting, Councilmember Bob Kellar’s “proud racist” remark from 2010 came back to haunt him yet again. Community activists, many of them young people, returned or called in to City Hall after last meeting’s initial volley. They restated their demands: Bob Kellar must resign, the City must condemn racism, policing must change/be de-funded, etc. Many speakers launched aggressive and personal attacks against the councilmembers, but the councilmembers chose not to engage as much as they did at the last meeting. In other developments, the Council adopted the FY2020/21 budget, election preparations were made, and Councilmembers McLean and Weste worried about a slippery slope to the government snooping on everyone’s driving. Let’s recap.
Amazing Grace
Mayor Pro Tem Bill Miranda’s invocation was about a man who saw the error of his ways and changed for the better:
“‘Amazing Grace’ was written in 1779 by John Newton, who at the time was an active member of the slave trade. He was blind to the evil of the systematic racism from which he was profiting. Over time, Newton saw the error of his evil ways and became an abolitionist. He hated slavery and thought it evil and wrong. The message of the song is that forgiveness and redemption are possible, regardless of the sins committed. and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God.”
Miranda is the most idealistic of all the councilmembers, so was he trying to make an abstract statement about the possibility for meaningful change and progress? At least in part. But Miranda also knows what’s been going on, and while he has steadfastly defended Kellar as honorable, decent, and not-racist, this choice of anecdote wouldn’t be his first indirect suggestion that Kellar could do more to ease community tensions.
Mayor Cameron Smyth made a proclamation for “Indepedents [no, not “Independence”] Week.” It’s a week to celebrate independent businesses and entrepreneurs for their role in the community. He asked that Claritans do their part by shopping locally. After all, everyone knows people whose small businesses and livelihoods have been impacted by coronavirus and the shutdown.
Unyielding
Mayor Smyth opened up the public participation portion of the meeting by explaining that the first ten speakers would proceed, followed by the regular business of the meeting, followed by the remaining speakers. Clearly, there were a lot of people who still had something to say about Councilmember Kellar. Many were youths, many had returned from the prior meeting, and many chose to read from prepared statements. (That last note may sound trivial, but people tend to speak too quickly and to slip into monotone when they’re reading, so it can be less effective.)
There were many common refrains. No one was ready to excuse Bob Kellar based on the context of his prior remarks, arguing instead that he demonstrated racist and anti-immigrant sentiments in other statements, too. Speakers noted that a change.org petition demanding Kellar’s resignation had as many responses as votes that he received last election (how many of the petition signers were from Santa Clarita was unclear). The other councilmembers were condemned for allegedly focusing on the wrong things: McLean was more worried about the image of Santa Clarita than about addressing its problems; Weste talked more about the Fourth of July than the protests; and Miranda was bothered by curse words on signs, but not Kellar’s words. Even councilmember statements that “black lives matter” were labeled as less than meaningful. Kimberly Luna said, “It is not enough for you to simply state that ‘black lives matter.’ Since it’s trendy right now, it doesn’t mean as much as it used to.”
These collective grievances are likely to be aired again later this week—Cassidy Bensko announced another demonstration slated for Friday. She and others plan to keep up the pressure on Bob Kellar and the City Council.
In lashing out against the councilmembers, many speakers were ready to dismiss whole decades’ worth of community contributions and legacies over Kellar’s remarks. Quynn Lubs said, “I hope you know that you will all be remembered as weak, small-minded, ignorant people who refuse to take a stand against racism. You are all complicit, and you will be remembered as such.” At least a couple speakers argued that activist “high school girls” (Kellar’s dismissive term from last week) had done more for Santa Clarita than any of the councilmembers. The first round of comments ended on this same theme of legacy-wrecking when a speaker named David took over the last half of another speaker’s call:
“You know it’s sad—I’m an educator, over 30 years, to listen to young people, so hurt, by you Bob Kellar, to be so hurt, by a man who is a leader! It’s time for you to stand up, Bob, and walk off of that dais. Now! I don’t care if it’s November. You stand up right now, Bob, and walk off that dais. I am watching the TV. Stand up! For all the young people, who are hurting right now, stand up, and go away! It doesn’t make you a bad man. It actually—this would be the best thing you’ve ever done. Stand up and walk away. You’re hurting young people. Thank God these young people are gonna be in charge and not you people. You’re almost out. You’re almost done. I cannot wait for that day. Go Zoomers, we’re enough with the Boomers. [screeching] I yield the rest of my tiiiiiiiime! [cheers in background of call]”
The City Council listens to public participation comments.
“Excuse me?”
The City Council engaged with the speakers’ comments only selectively. Mayor Smyth asked City Manager Ken Striplin to address an allegation that the City paid over $20M for policing but spent less than $40,000 on fire. Striplin clarified that most fire fighting and prevention funds came from property taxes and amounted to over $60M per year—well over what’s spent on policing.
Councilmember Marsha McLean expressed her dismay over the insults thrown her way:
“Even though the speakers are going to be very disappointed, I’m not going to address some of the comments calling us weak, ignorant, small-minded people. Excuse me? That does not elicit support for anything that you have to say. That is disrespectful and it is not OK.”
A few minutes later, McLean thought it important to reaffirm that she valued free speech and free thinking, but used in a civil, non-insulting manner:
“Nobody should tell you what to think, how to think—that’s not up to anyone else. You’re entitled to it. It’s guaranteed us by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. So don’t let anybody take that away from you. But also, allow other people who may not agree with what you have to say to speak their views. Look at both sides of an issue, come to your own conclusion.”
Mayor Pro Tem Miranda and Councilmember Laurene Weste echoed the idea of the importance of having community discussions. Miranda had attended a Juneteenth celebration, and he thanked many individuals by name for taking him up on his offer to have one-on-one discussions about the state of things in Santa Clarita. Weste stated that community discussions were key to moving issues forward, and she stressed a need for kindness. Weste’s general comments also included mention of the City’s modified slate of Fourth of July activities, including a peewee parade, patriotic tour, and fireworks.
As for Councilmember Kellar? When asked for comments, he said, “I believe I’ve taken enough of your time tonight. Thank you very much.”
A Home by the Mall
The consent calendar didn’t have many contentious items, but a few attracted comments. Steve Petzold spoke on Item 6, which made preparations for the City Council election this November. Petzold suggested that subsidizing candidate statements was worth considering. Presently, candidates must pay costs associated with the optional statements. The next item on the agenda sought to improve campaign transparency by creating a new policy for campaign finance disclosure forms. Paper forms will still be accepted, but if a campaign submits electronically, that means they have “opted in” to electronic submissions and must continue to do so for all subsequent forms. This could hasten the release of forms to the public.
On Item 8, wherein SoCal Edison requested an easement for access near Needham Ranch. Elaine Ballace encouraged the City to negotiate. She suggested withholding access to gain assurances that SoCal Edison wouldn’t raise utility rates. The City didn’t adopt this strategy, perhaps because access to a dirt road wasn’t sufficient leverage for meaningful rate negotiations.
The last bit of discussion concerned Item 13, which could mean up to a half-million dollar grant towards preparing a city-center specific plan for the area around McBean and Valencia Boulevard. Councilmember Kellar said he didn’t like it when “Sacramento was over-stepping its bounds.” He said that politicians were throwing around a little money to dictate construction of high-density housing in city centers, like the area around our mall. The City Manager clarified that California had indeed changed its housing policies to make it easier for high-density housing projects to move forward, but the grant application was only intended to help prepare, not to force the City to take any immediate actions. When it came time to vote, all the councilmembers voted for the recommended actions on all items except for Kellar, who voted against the city-center specific plan grant.
Vehicle Miles Angst
At the last meeting, there were public hearings on the City’s $220M budget and on levy assessments for special districts—these came back for final approval tonight. There were relatively few comments. On the topic of the budget, Kieran Wong called in to praise Santa Clarita’s fiscally responsible practices, while Christina Carlson requested line-item budgeting for the policing budget. She wasn’t exactly saying “defund the police”, but she wanted to know how public safety funds were being spent in detail to encourage critical evaluation.
City Manager Ken Striplin explained that the policing chunk of Santa Clarita’s budget appears as a single item because it is a single item, namely a contract for services from the LA County Sheriff’s Department. He said that other, comparably sized SoCal cities can spend well over double what Santa Clarita pays, so we were not at the high end of spending for policing services.
You wouldn’t think that street lights would be controversial, but Alan Ferdman had dug into a public hearing on the matter and uncovered what he considered irregularities. He made points about whether LA County funds appeared in the budget and wondered why an approximately 50% reduction in operation costs wasn’t fully passed along. City staff said the numbers were all correctly and fully reported. Not all savings from the switch from LED lighting were being passed along because some savings were helping to pay off bonds earlier, which would itself result in savings over time.
One of tonight’s new public hearings took place to amend the City’s Community Development Block Grant annual plan. In response to COVID-19 impacts, the City was receiving more funds (over $1.5M) to support coronavirus testing, affordable housing, and the like.
A decidedly more contentious new public hearing related to assessing transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Most development projects require CEQA documents and review, and the State recently mandated use of vehicle miles traveled thresholds in place of level of service for CEQA. The difference, as explained on the City’s slides, was that “vehicle miles traveled measures the impact of driving capturing number and length of trips on roadway network” whereas “level of service measures the impact of development and traffic on the driver.”
It was all fairly technical, but the plan seriously concerned at least two councilmembers. Weste called it, “A significant shift in the paradigm of planning in California.” McLean worried:
“You all know that I’ve been very involved in transportation issues for many years, and I guess one good thing about being on the job for a good many years is you don’t lose historical perspective. For many, many years there has been talk about ‘vehicle miles traveled’ where the endgame is to put a meter in every single vehicle to track how many miles you drive on a daily basis and to charge you for those miles and then to build toll roads on our freeways to turn our freeways into toll roads and charge you for going on those roads. So when I read about this and they’re calling it ‘vehicle miles traveled,’ I’m very suspect about this. Um, I think this is—even though it doesn’t say so in this particular bill—I asked the city manager to look into it. I think this is a roadway into what they ultimately want to do to us. And I cannot support this at all.”
The tone sounded at least a little conspiratorial, but Oregon has done something similar, and the LA Times occasionally runs related stories. Still, it wasn’t clear whether this was the right opportunity for Santa Clarita to take a stand, so to speak, against tracking individuals via their vehicle mileage. After all, the scope of the particular hearing was narrow: adjusting how to make transportation impact calculations for CEQA. “Are we handcuffed to this, Ken?”, asked Councilmember Weste of City Manager Ken Striplin. He explained the item was being presented because it was part of a State mandate, so there really wasn’t much wiggle room. The Council, with the exception of McLean, voted for to implement the changes.
Public Participation Resumes
The second round of public participation again revolved around condemning Councilmember Kellar for his alleged racism. With roughly two dozen total speakers on the topic tonight, all the points about Kellar got repeated over and over again. This made the personal stories of some young Claritans who had personally experienced racism stand out more. Sofia Ongele countered the idea that Santa Clarita wasn’t racist, saying:
“Santa Clarita is the town where my dad had a gun pulled on him for going on a walk, where my younger sister and I have been yelled the n-word at as we walk home from school, and where I learned at a young age to hate my skin color.”
Megan Duncan said:
“My first impression was the lack of diversity. Everything was white. I remember trying to wear my hair natural at school. I would get comments like, ‘Your hair is so big’, ‘Can I touch your hair?’, and other comments like, ‘You don’t act like a black girl,’ and ‘You’re pretty for a black girl.’”
After all of the speakers had their say, the meeting adjourned.
