Opponents call the move unfair. The City says it is exactly the opposite.
The Santa Clarita City Council voted 4 to 1 in favor of extending the filing deadline for those applying for the Citizen’s Financial and Audit Committee Panel for the Open Space Preservation District. Five positions are available, and so far six applications have been received. One application was withdrawn, although that individual is expected to re-apply now that personal circumstances have changed.
City Manager Ken Pulskamp advocated that the deadline should be extended because the last week of the filing period was during the Santa Clarita Wildfires, He said it is not unusual to receive a large amount of applications during the final week, and because a state of emergency was declared, he felt that the City should give a little more time to make sure interested applicants could file.
Two speakers blasted the idea, with one saying that the deadline extension could make it appear the Council isn’t satisfied with the applicants. Another said that the five current applicants are diverse and a good fit for the panel.
Councilmember TimBen Boydston said that extending the deadline would not be fair to those who completed their applications on time. He was the lone dissenting vote on the matter. Now, the deadline has been extended to December 28th, 2007.
[view:node_ad=5]The Council also voted unanimously to take a new look at their annexation policy. As it stands now, Santa Clarita asks communities interested in annexing into the City to get 60% of their residents to sign in favor of that idea. This new policy could ease those requirements.
While several members of the Castaic and West Ranch Town Councils voiced concerns over the changes, the Santa Clarita City Council claims to have an agreement that the new policies would not immediately be implemented for those areas.
And in the third major issue, the City Council voted to take one more step towards a formal lobbyist registration system; although not all of the Council members thought it was a good idea. Read more about this by clicking here.