Santa Clarita City Council members will formally discuss the SCV Sanitation District’s chloride solution, following a protest from a group of residents upset over property plans outside city limits.
Dozens of westsiders showed Tuesday at City Hall — with Westridge and Stevenson Ranch addresses — after which Councilman Bob Kellar led a call for the city to agendize the matter at the next meeting.
“We’ve been fighting this chloride issue for years and years,” Kellar said at the meeting. “It’s nothing that this city has been in support of.”
Several City Council members tried to explain the city’s yearslong, complicated involvement in the fight Tuesday against the state’s mandate, and how the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District ratepayers are now being threatened with severe fines if they don’t approve a plan to remove the level of chloride in the Santa Clara River water sent downstream to Ventura County.
The City Council directed staff Tuesday to place the deep well injection plan on the next City Council meeting agenda.
“The council directed to the staff (for the agenda to include) the time for the extension of the (environmental report), as well as the location of the deep well injection site,” said Gail Morgan, spokeswoman for the city of Santa Clarita.
Several of the Westside residents called for a 100-day or more extension, which City Councilwoman Laurene Weste had no objection to, but she also noted she was not a part of the agency threatening SCVSD ratepayers with fines that could reach into the millions of dollars.
She also hoped the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has already levied more than $200,000 in fines against the city, was “on board” with the changes, she said.
The change in deference represents a reversal for the council, which refused to agendize a position on the chloride problem about 18 months ago, before the recently amended chloride plan was approved in Oct. 29, 2013, two days before a state-mandated deadline.
The approval of a chloride compliance plan came after a pair of lengthy public hearings in 2013, hours of public comment and discussion and the withdrawal of support for a collaborative alternative by Ventura County interests.
The Sanitation District was given the Oct. 31, 2013, deadline as part of a fine settlement for previously missing a deadline to come up with a compliance plan.
Much of the outcry on Tuesday was from citizens who felt uninvolved in the outreach efforts by the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District, which currently is headed by Mayor Marsha McLean, City Councilwoman Laurene Weste and county Supervisor Michael Antonovich.
The city appoints two representatives each year, with the mayor traditionally taking one of the spots.
Both Antonovich and Assemblyman Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, criticized the outreach effort in the past week, leading the Sanitation District to add a third public outreach meeting and extend the public comment period to March 23.
A third public hearing on the environmental report will take place March 9, at the Santa Clarita Activities Center, 20880 Centre Pointe Parkway, Santa Clarita. The hearing will begin at 7 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m.
In September 2013, Councilman TimBen Boydston asked his fellow councilmembers to take up the item on the agenda, and he was rebuffed, due to concerns of a potential “conflict of interest.”
“We have two members of our council who are representatives on the Sanitation District,” said TimBen Boydston during a Sept. 24, 2013, City Council meeting. “Those people will be making the decision, which will result in possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes for the people of Santa Clarita, as well as for those people living outside of the city of Santa Clarita in the unincorporated areas.”
When Boydston first brought up a recommendation, part of the concern was due to a Brown Act violation, which could exist if certain criteria were not met, according to city attorney Joe Montes.
In response, Boydston asked if the remaining three council members who are not on the Sanitation District board could meet to make an endorsement on the city’s behalf, with the two governing board members on City Council recusing themselves.
That would be OK, Montes said, provided the City Council did not plan to have a discussion on the Sanitation District’s decision, because any action that resulted would be considered a potential conflict of interest the other way.
In response , McLean cautioned Boydston against “putting the cart before the horse,” because the City Council did not know how the Sanitation District board members would act once all the information was presented to them.
The item was not agendized as a result of that discussion.
“Two of those people sit on the council, so we as a council can not meet to look after our citizens as a council?” Boydston asked rhetorically at that meeting. “We will not have a voice to recommend to the Sanitation District, which is a separate entity, because we will be prejudicing the Sanitation District just by them making a recommendation to themselves.”
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1 Comment
I’m personally not in favor of the well. However, those who vote to oppose, potentially cost rate payers millions, should be the ones paying, I cannot afford any more. For years SCV residents have been under mandate to remove salt water from our discharge. This plan isn’t new. But where was the opposition at the many past Sanitation District meetings. Where were the Face Book pages and protesting children then?? The few, in the past, who voiced their opinions about this mentioned governmental overreach and loss of freedom–uh oh–sounds like kooky conservatives to me!!! Now SCV residents are faced with the end game and a deadline which nobody likes. The NIMBY sentiment will prevail, rather than thoughtful solutions.