CASTAIC EYES CITYHOOD OR ANNEXATION.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

CASTAIC -- Castaic residents have created Castaic Now, a nonprofit group looking into either annexing to Santa Clarita or forming a separate city.

Members of the group said they expect to raise the $100,000 needed for an economic study.

Like their neighbors to the south in Stevenson Ranch, they have spent the past couple of years weighing a change from county governance and are on the move.

``We've met with the city manager of Fillmore to find out how their city was formed, met with the mayor and city manager of Calabasas,'' said John Kunak, a Castaic Town Council member. ``We're doing everything we can to educate ourselves and the community so we can make a well-informed decision for what is best for our future.''

Demographics of those cities resemble Castaic, he said.

Businesses in the Valencia Commerce Center and several Castaic neighborhoods had petitioned Santa Clarita for annexation in July 2005. The city, meanwhile, eyed the industrial park, north of Highway 126, as a lucrative tax engine should Castaic become part of the city.

The following May, the Castaic Town Council -- which stood in the way of the city's attempt to annex just the business complex -- reached out to the city after petitions supporting annexation circulated in three neighborhoods. A Vision Committee that weighed government options eliminated the status quo as one of them.

To stave off piecemeal change, the council asked whether the city was willing to take all of Castaic. If the answer was no, a partial annexation would have been off the table, Kunak said.

``The city formally responded and said they are interested in taking all of Castaic,'' Kunak said. The Vision Committee disbanded and has been replaced by the newly formed nonprofit group.

Kunak said the community will fully explore both options before choosing. He expects the Castaic council to work with the West Ranch Town Council ``to determine what is best for all communities'' west of the I-5.

Dave Bossert, president of the West Ranch Town Council concurred. The West Ranch council formed a three-member committee this week to explore whether Stevenson Ranch and Valencia Westridge should form their own city, keep the status quo or annex into the city of Santa Clarita.

The population in the unincorporated areas west of Interstate 5 has mushroomed to more than 66,000, county officials said.

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich had opposed the city annexing properties west of Interstate 5, but said it was up to residents to decide their destiny.

Before it formed in 1987, Santa Clarita had sought to encompass 150 square miles, but the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission, which rules on regional municipal boundary changes, nixed the plan, granting it little more than 39 square miles and leaving out Castaic, Val Verde and what is now Stevenson Ranch. Over the years, the city has completed 28 annexations, most recently adding the Stonecrest neighborhood in the east valley in July.

Antonovich had intervened on behalf of residents who protested the Stonecrest annexation, which the city was pushing to gain a land bridge to a massive sand and gravel mine proposed for Soledad Canyon that the city has spent about $8 million battling. The protests were invalidated, but LAFCO ordered a new protest hearing because of an interagency procedural error.

Another big player looms on the west side of the I-5 about two miles from Valencia. The 21,000-home Newhall Ranch community, which will be built over the next two decades, and the plethora of commercial and retail businesses planned there are on the minds of many.

Revenues from vehicle-license taxes pay for city and county services. A recent change in state law has reduced the subsidy that gave new cities a boost for seven years, and helped new cities to form.

A law enacted last month would provide a five-year declining boost from vehicle in-lieu fees through 2009 for new cities. The state has added funds to the mix to help out communities on the verge.

An expert on tax matters said the measure could bode well for communities angling for cityhood.

``The intention of the bill is to restore the fiscal viability of new incorporations and annexations and it's certainly helping,'' said Michael Coleman, a fiscal policy adviser to the League of California Cities. ``Several incorporations in the works that got hung up following the (law's passage)... with the new law, they're now back on track, we think.''

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