MCKEON: FATE OF CONNECTOR PROJECT IN AIR GOP LAWMAKER SAYS DEMS MAY CUT BRIDGE `EARMARK'.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- With Democrats in Congress vowing to take a hard look at funding for special projects, Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon said he is concerned about the Cross-Valley Connector project in his hometown.

The city asked for $7 million last year to help build a bridge for Golden Valley Road over the Santa Clara River, a segment being designed as part of the $245 million Cross-Valley Connector.

But the U.S. House of Representatives provided just $500,000 for the bridge in June, and that was withdrawn in later budget deliberations. Now that the Democrats have taken control of the House and Senate, they have pledged to cut back on the kinds of ``earmarks'' that help fund special projects such as the Cross-Valley Connector.

``If we get the opportunity ... to preserve the earmark, to protect the earmark, we certainly will do it,'' said James Geoffrey, spokesman for the Republican McKeon, who represents Santa Clarita. ``But the Democrats control procedures now, so they get to decide.''

Just $20 million -- or 8percent of the total cost of the road -- is coming from the federal government, said Michael Murphy, intergovernmental relations officer for the city.

If the city gets the full $7 million it requested for the bridge, the federal share of the connector project would rise to $27 million.

``We have heard rumor that the new House leadership is going to be looking very hard at special project earmarks across the entire federal budget,'' Murphy said. ``We believe that the Cross-Valley Connector is a good project and can easily withstand any level of scrutiny that anyone in Washington wants to put on it.''

Critics of earmarks focused last year on the $223 million bridge planned in Alaska to connect a two sparsely populated areas.

The $7 million for the project to build the bridge over the Santa Clara River would be the last federal request for the Cross-Valley Connector, Murphy said. Conceived as the final link in the project, the Golden Valley Road bridge over the Santa Clara already has received $10.8 million in federal funding.

When city officials know how the project will be funded, they can set a date to start construction, said Debbie Helbig, project development coordinator for the city.

City officials will get a better idea of where federal funding for their project stands in the coming months.

Critics have blamed the Republican-controlled Congress for failing to balance the budget, and last year Congress set the debt limit at about $9 trillion.

The incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, Rep. Dave Obey of Wisconsin and Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, issued a joint statement on federal funding bills last month. They pledged to place a moratorium on all earmarks until budget reform is implemented, and they said earmarks approved for this year will be pushed over to 2008.

``There is no good way out of the fiscal chaos left behind by the outgoing Congress,'' Obey and Byrd said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, work continues on a key sector of the Cross-Valley Connector. The segment of Newhall Ranch Road from Rye Canyon Road/Copper Hill Road to state Route 126 is due to open in October, and that will complete the western leg of the connector.

The $245 million connector will link the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway to Interstate 5, and it is being funded with city, regional and federal money. It is made up of Newhall Ranch Road to the west and Golden Valley Road to the east, and it is meant to take traffic off congested Soledad Canyon Road.

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