PROPERTY OWNERS OK OPEN-LAND BUY $25-A-YEAR ASSESSMENT OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVED.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM

Staff writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Property owners in Santa Clarita overwhelmingly approved a $25-a-year parcel assessment to buy up open land in hopes of limiting development, Councilwoman Laurene Weste announced Friday.

A consulting firm finished counting ballots Friday morning, tallying a 9,386-to-5,568 approval -- 69 percent to 31 percent. A similar measure in 2005 failed, winning just 40 percent of the vote.

"This effort will forever enhance the lives of our citizens, as well as our wildlife, in the Santa Clarita Valley," Weste said in thanking the volunteer crew that campaigned for the initiative. "For generations to come, these lands will be protected so your children's children will be able to experience the special life and environment we share today.

"For those of you who had the vision and the stamina to make this possible, I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The City Council will hold a special meeting at 4 p.m. Tuesday and is expected to adopt a resolution to form an open space district. On Aug. 28, the council will review a staff report outlining the proposed process and timeline for selecting an oversight committee to monitor expenses related to the assessment. When the assessment will be levied and how it will be paid have yet to be determined.

The funding will allow the city to immediately borrow $23.4 million and buy land up to three miles outside city limits. Santa Clarita's goal with the funding is to buy up buildable land for preservation, land that in the fast-growing valley otherwise might be developed with housing.

Property owners will pay $25 per parcel, increasing up to $1 a year, for 30 years. The assessment will raise up to $34.6 million.

Weste, who headed the committee that pushed the initiative, said volunteers were the reason this open-space assessment district succeeded where the November 2005 effort failed.

"The supporters for this effort were in the hundreds," she said. "I want to thank all of these people who contributed.

Noticeably missing from a list of supporters -- among them civic groups, law enforcement personnel, local elected officials and prominent business people -- was Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. Supporters pointed to large developments approved outside city limits, in the county's jurisdiction, as the drive for a measure to save wilderness. The measure was sold as a means to slow growth, reduce traffic and cut crime.

The city wrote Antonovich seeking support, city spokeswoman Gail Ortiz said. His spokesman, Tony Bell, said Friday that the supervisor did not take a position on the measure because it was for city residents to decide.

Opponents argued that the city had a chance to control growth within its boundaries and by battling the 21,000-home Newhall Ranch project planned just west of Santa Clarita, along the environmentally sensitive Santa Clara River.

The vote was handled differently than a standard tax proposal because only property owners voted and only they will pay the assessment. A committee of 40 to 50 people raised money to campaign for the effort. Their names and the amount raised were not divulged because the campaign was not considered political.

Ortiz said 16,500 ballots were returned of the 59,000 mailed out. Of those, 1,546 ballots were rejected, mostly because they were not signed, but they wouldn't have changed the outcome.

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