Members of the Santa Clarita City Council agreed to hire a consultant to research what it would take to create a separate health department for the city during their regular meeting Tuesday.

Following a discussion during Tuesday’s meeting, the Santa Clarita City Council agreed to use $25,000 in order to hire a consultant that would research what would be required to create and run a Santa Clarita-specific health department, which would allow the city to re-open at a different rate than the rest of Los Angeles County.

“I don’t know if it’s feasible to not take on everything the health department does for L.A. County,” said Councilmember Marsha McLean. “Because it’s a huge department, I’m not sure if that’s feasible for us to take that on. However, is there a way to break it down so we have some say-so over the health and well-being of our citizens when it comes to pandemics and things such as that?”

Once hired, the consultant’s job is to “conduct an analysis on the feasibility of creating and operating a local Public Health Department.”

“The study would evaluate different models of service delivery, scope of services provided, and potential revenues and expenses, among other factors,” reads the agenda packet from Tuesday’s meeting.

See Related: Santa Clarita City Council Agrees To Explore Creation Of Separate Health Department

The idea of a Santa Clarita health department was first formally proposed at the end of August by Mayor Cameron Smyth, who believes that Santa Clarita’s re-opening timeline is being slowed down by the COVID-19 numbers from the rest of Los Angeles County.

“It just makes sense to look for ways to separate ourselves from the rest of L.A. County,” he said in a previous KHTS story. “Put together the Northern L.A. County region is larger than over half of the counties in the state.”

Smyth then presented this idea to the City Council during their Sept. 8 meeting, where they agreed to explore the creation of such a department.

Councilmember Bob Kellar spoke out against the costs of the research for the possibility of a new health department, claiming the research would amount to nothing in the end.

The council voted 4 -1 in favor of using $25,000 to conduct an analysis on the feasibility of creating and operating a local Public Health Department.

The Santa Clarita City Council is expected to hear the findings of the consultant’s analysis at a future meeting, the exact date yet to be determined.

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