SANTA CLARITA MOTHER, CHILDREN TAKE STAND FOR SIDEWALKS, SAFETY : U.S. LOAN NEEDED TO SPEED PROGRAM.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

Judy Barringer taught her children an early civics lesson when she carted them to a City Council meeting, sending them to the podium to ask for sidewalks in their west Newhall neighborhood.

``It will give us a place to walk and ride bikes,'' 9-year-old Cheyanne Barringer told the council from a microphone barely able to be bent down to her height.

Cheyanne and her brother, Derek, kicked off a line of speakers Tuesday who urged the council to borrow $4.6 million from the federal government to hasten the construction of sidewalks, curbs and gutters. Without the loan, it may be 2007 before the work is done, city officials said.

``We have people that have to wait and wait and wait and wait,'' a sympathetic Mayor Clyde Smyth said Tuesday, trying to persuade council members to take a loan to build the sidewalks earlier, rather than a bit every year.

But that option doesn't sit well with a council that has worked to keep the city's debt low.

``It is so typically American that we borrow and encumber our future,'' said Councilwoman Jan Heidt.

Barringer agrees with that philosophy - she and her husband have no debts of their own, other than the loan used to finance the $126,000 home they moved into 11 years ago - but thinks the time is right for this project.

Council members voted Tuesday to delay action on the issue. It will come back to them when it begins its annual budget deliberations in May.

How to finance the curbs and sidewalks is a decision the city has been struggling with for years, and a dilemma familiar to most cities throughout the state. With tightening municipal revenue, cities can do less and now rely on other mechanisms.

It's now required that a developer build the sidewalks, curbs and gutters when a home is constructed, but that wasn't the case in the 1930s when the Barringers' 16th Street home was built in the rural area.

``You didn't need sidewalks when you had horses, I guess,'' Judy Barringer said in an interview Thursday.

But her neighborhood has changed. It's now surrounded by three schools, a park and recreation center and the streets are used as thoroughfares by drivers looking for shortcuts.

``That's increased traffic a lot,'' she said.

The city has agreed to build the sidewalks in five phases with annual grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program. But the residents say using the annual fund incrementally will take too long.

``In 2007, he'll be 22 and she'll be 20. It seems a little long to me,'' Barringer said, nodding to her children. She also pointed to information cited by city officials that financing the project now likely would save costs since building costs are likely to rise at a rate higher than the interest costs for the loan.

The city has $25 million of debt - mere peanuts by state standards - which includes $19.2 million in bonds it issued in 1991 to buy City Hall, the vehicle yard and to make street improvements, according to Barbara Boswell, the city's accounting manager.

``Philosophically, our council has been economically conservative,'' said Ken Pulskamp, the assistant city manager.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: (color) Judy Barringer walks in the street with her children, Derek, 12, and Cheyanne, 9, outside their 16th Street home in Santa Clarita. Barringer says the lack of sidewalks, curbs and gutters poses problems for her neighborhood.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News