The city of Santa Clarita hosted its State of the City Luncheon 2012 Thursday.

While Santa Clarita celebrated its 25th birthday it also marked the last State of the City Luncheon for current City Manager Ken Pulskamp, who announced his retirement effective December.

Pulskamp received a standing ovation as he welcomed everyone to the luncheon. He emphasized the reason the city of Santa Clarita is doing well is because of the people in the community.

“Our city is the envy of every other city in California,” said Pulskamp. “This happened because of the people in this room and the people in the community.”

Pulskamp has been with the city almost since its inception in 1987 and over the years has served as the Department Head of every city department. He became City Manager in 2002.

“Ken is recognized as one of the top one percent of City Managers in the nation. He is consistently asked to go speak in different states at their conventions about how to run cities,” city of Santa Clarita Mayor Frank Ferry said of the City Manager. “He’s still going to live here, we’re still going to able to pick his brain, he’s a very good friend, and we were fortunate to have him as long as we did.”

The presentations began with Mayor Frank Ferry talking about how sweet it was to be in the Santa Clarita Valley, and debuted the newest flavor of Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream “Nutty Cream Cheese Brownie” which was created by Santa Clarita resident Kelsey Lien.

The video presentations then started and each member of the city council highlighted the beautification plan for the Santa Clarita Valley.

“Every year we spend $1.5 million on graffiti removal, we have people every night looking for it, so it’s down before you even wake up,” said Ferry. “A lot of areas have just quit, when it has come to graffiti removal, and we don’t believe that to be the standard. We live in the community and when we drive around we and the people in the community want to see those beautiful horizons.”

The Beautification Master Plan City of Santa Clarita’s has long term goal of citywide streetscape improvements and beautification. The main areas the plan will focus on are streetscape design, landscape enhancement, gateways and signage.