The following was an editorial that appeared in The Signal on March 28, 2010.

There is strength in numbers, and Santa Clarita’s movers, shakers and decision-makers stood side-by-side in Sacramento last week to flex their muscles.

It was the fifth annual Sacramento Road Trip, organized each year by KHTS AM-1220 radio station owners Carl Goldman and Jeri Seratti-Goldman.

With scheduling assistance from Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, the trek offered the SCV’s school, business and political leaders an opportunity to promote their agencies’ agendas and air their grievances with the folks who hold the purse strings in the Capitol.

The latter were quick to let them know the purse was empty.

Be that as it may, the trip sent a strong signal: The Santa Clarita Valley puts up a united front. Our leaders rally for each others’ causes, and they pile the pressure on until those goals are achieved.

Just look at the new cross-valley connector. It might not have happened if “only” our city government or “only” the local business community thought it important. Instead, they kept hammering away together until it got done.

Look at the Cemex mine in Soledad Canyon. It hasn’t happened because everyone, from the city and the schools to the business community and environmental groups, has voiced a unified message: Keep it away. It would hurt us.

That’s what these Sacramento trips are all about. Our body politic is unified. What affects us in one area affects us all, be it an inequity in school funding or a disruption in state water. And we aren’t afraid to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and say so.

Kudos to all involved.