Reflecting further on the recent West Ranch Town Council election, I can’t help but think that no matter what goes on it some how keeps getting dragged back to annexation. The misguided editorial in the Signal started out taken inaccurate potshots at the election and then morphed into why the west side doesn’t have a vote on annexation. We did, by the way, ask on the ballot if that was a priority for the community but the Signal didn’t report that!
The attempt on the part of the West Ranch Town Council at wanting to work with the City of Santa Clarita on the dual park fees skidded into annexation. That was when Frank Ferry screamed, red face and all, at me for coming to the City Council meeting to discuss it. He spent about 30 seconds on the park fees and then ripped into a five minute or so dissertation on why the West Ranch residents are idiots for not annexing.
Typically, it seems that anything regarding the unincorporated areas in the Santa Clarita Valley always morphs into the question of annexation. Yet there has not been any actual progress in trying to get an annexation underway. Why?
I think that a lot has to do with what we witnessed at the July 4th Council election; voter apathy. The community appears to be content with how things a going. There are, as James Zimmerman of the West Ranch Town Council pointed out, no hot button issues that are creating concern with the residents. It does not appear that even annexation is on the mind of the community.
The handful of residents that are for annexation did not even appear to take the time to cast a ballot. Did Diane Savanian vote? She was calling for the community to “just annex already”, yet she has not shown up to any community meetings to voice here opinion or to participate in the process.
Years ago a group, the West Side Annexation Committee, was formed with the sole purpose of collecting signatures to get an annexation off the ground. They collected a few hundred signatures and then folded up and blew away. That seemed to say that the community did not care about annexation at that time.
It is clear from a conversation with our election volunteers that the community appears still not to care. During the election on July 4th the volunteers were asking residents entering the park to vote and many just replied that they “were not interested”. This is not just the state of affairs locally but nationally as well!