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FIRST TERM AS MAYOR 211

Angeles Times valley edition the next day. Gail Foy (now Morgan), our public
information officer, was excited. “I know people who would kill to get their
picture on the front page!” she exclaimed.
“Really?” I kidded. “Then how come you didn’t get them to put my name in
the caption?” Having my face in the photo was a fluke. They liked the balloons
in the background.
Jan Heidt was the subject of intense criticism by Joan MacGregor, then
president of the Sulphur Springs Union School District. The school district was
in the process of closing an old school and building a shopping center on the land
to provide funds for a new school. Jan voiced concern about traffic and aesthetic
issues, and the council voted four to one (McKeon dissenting) to send the plans
back for revisions. Joan said she was going to work against Jan’s reelection bid
in April. The project came back eventually with a better plan, and was approved
and built. Joan MacGregor calmed down and went on to bigger and better
32
things.
Jill Klajic and John Drew continued their campaign for growth-control.
Meanwhile city staff members were working on the growth management plan as
a result of the adoption of the general plan. Klajic did not know enough about
government to understand that the growth management plan had been in the
works for months. She seemed to think that we could cook one up overnight in
an effort to derail CARRING’s proposal. This would have been impossible
without someone from the staff releasing information about the effort. Of course
John Drew understood the situation very well, but it was not convenient for him
to admit it. 33
Klajic paid to have her letter printed in The Signal on September 25, which
said in part, “Consider that these same four council members refused to include
an effective proposal within the General Plan which could have become part of
an effective growth control system¼.
“Consider their attitude toward the CARRING initiative, which is now well
on its way towards the April ballot, and happens to be the only growth control
measure proposed so far for Santa Clarita. The four member majority of the city
council refused to put the initiative on the ballot.”
Meanwhile, developers were upset because we were “downzoning” them. 34
On September 29 Tim Whyte’s story in The Signal, “Klajic’s ‘Voting Record
Hypocritical’,” revealed that Jan Heidt had voted more often against residential
development than Jill Klajic. Klajic protested that the published results did not
reflect accurately her position on growth. She was correct. They did not reflect
any council member’s position accurately. My own votes were always with the
council majority (except that I was absent on business from the final vote on
Palmer’s Santa Catarina). In each case, the approved project had been improved
in the process, as density was decreased and greater amenities required.
However, since I was the swing vote, I often made the majority. Nonetheless, I
did not have a close friend such as Allan Cameron working as a developer’s
representative on many of the projects for which I voted.