Home » Santa Clarita News » Politics » Santa Clarita City Council To Discuss Westside Chloride Solution
Santa Clarita City Council members are agendizing the SCV’s chloride solution, ironically after 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.
A meeting at City Hall, more than two years ago, when the initial EIR plans were discussed for the future of Santa Clarita Valley's water treatment. A plan initially presented then expects to be finalized, in part, at the end of the month.

Santa Clarita City Council To Discuss Westside Chloride Solution

Santa Clarita City Council members are agendizing the SCV’s chloride solution, ironically after protest from a group of residents upset over property plans outside city limits.


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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.”

Santa Clarita City Councilman TimBen Boydston holds up a binder with a chloride study

Santa Clarita City Councilman TimBen Boydston holds up a binder with a chloride study

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.

Laurene Weste explains the history behind the chloride situation

Laurene Weste explains the history behind the chloride situation

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.

Related: Chloride Plan Approved For Santa Clarita Valley Residents

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.

Part of the issue was the Sanitation District hearings take place in Whittier. McLean said the next three months’ of Sanitation District governing board meetings would be held in Santa Clarita to address local concerns.

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.”

Related: Santa Clarita Won’t Recommend Chloride Option To SCV Sanitation District

“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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Santa Clarita City Council To Discuss Westside Chloride Solution

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About Perry Smith

Perry Smith is a print and broadcast journalist who has won several awards for his focused, hyperlocal community coverage in several different regions of the country. In addition to five years of experience covering the Santa Clarita Valley, Smith, a San Fernando Valley native, has worked in newspapers and news websites in Los Angeles, the Northwest, the Central Valley and the South, before coming to KHTS in 2012. To contact Smith, email him at Perry@hometownstation.com.