Members of the Santa Clarita City Council agreed Tuesday to explore the idea of creating a separate health department, which would allow the city to re-open at a different rate than the rest of Los Angeles County.

Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth presented the idea of creating a separate health department for the city during the City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday.

“…Asking city staff and the city manager of creating our own city’s health department, what that would look like,” said Smyth. ”I’m not naive to the potential costs and expanded bureaucracy time to at least look at what Pasadena and other cities have… I’d like to bring it to the council for discussion.”

Following Smyth’s proposal, the council agreed to explore what it would take to establish a health department separate from Los Angeles County.

“I know it’s very expensive,” said Councilmember Laurene Weste. “Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys- we have over 250k in this valley and a very small percentage have been ill and the hospital has handled people very well, as opposed to over the hill…”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Santa Clarita has seen lower rates of cases and hospitalizations across the valley, according to the mayor.

See Related: Mayor Cameron Smyth To Look Into Creation Of Santa Clarita’s Own Health Department

After the plan gets onto an agenda, City staff are able to conduct further research on the details on what a Santa Clarita health department would look like or even other approaches such as a regional model.

“Put together the Northern L.A. County region is larger than over half of the counties in the state,” Smyth said in a previous KHTS story. “We would ask City staff if a regional model would be effective.”

If created, a Santa Clarita Health Department would be able to reopen at a different rate than the rest of the county.

The plan has been placed on the agenda for a future city council meeting.

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