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community of Malibu, the Santa Monica Mountain coun-
try to the north, the Ventura Freeway communities of The bigness-
Agoura and Calabasas, and the burgeoning Ventura of Los Angeles County
County suburb of Thousand Oaks. (Plans are also afoot to
create city-county governments in central Los Angeles Los Angeles County contains more people than 42
and the San Fernando Valley.) of the states.
Whatever the outcome, there's a certain irony in the The 1975 county budget is larger than the budgets of
threatened balkanization of Los Angeles County. For 36 of the states.
years the county Regional Planning Commission and The county has 84,000 employees, more than 43 of
Board of Supervisors have approved subdivisions virtually the states.
on demand, even when bitterly opposed by those con- Each county supervisor represents about 1.4 million
stituents who already had made the move to suburbia. people - a larger constituency than most United
Now, of the seven million who live in Los Angeles County, States senators.
only a bit more than two million live in the City of Los Los Angeles leads all large counties in the number of
Angeles. The rest are spread along the freeways to the employees per capita (10.6 for every, 1,000 people).
outer fringes, and the outermost are turning against the County boundaries were last changed 85 years ago,
county, demanding to be let out. "The county is a mons- when the population was about 100,000.
ter," roars the N ewhall Signal , "that nourishes itself on
the life blood of the people of the Santa Clarita Valley." and fleeing residents in the event of disaster. Bouquet
Canyon Road stretches out into a straight, 55-mile-an-
Too many Newhalls?
hour highway, suddenly takes a 25 mile-an-hour bend for
A lot of things about the proposed new county would be no apparent reason, then returns to its former alignment.
named Newhall - too many to suit some opponents of the The county road department says it was put there accord-
plan. Scott Newhall, former editor of the San Francisco ing to a community plan provided by the county planning
Chronicle is publisher - his wife, Ruth, is editor - of the department.
Discussion during a recent planning commission meet-
ing revealed something of the insularity in which land-use
decisions are made. Residents from the proposed Canyon
County area had driven 50 miles to argue for and against
a proposed new subdivision, only to have the commission
postpone the hearing. Commissioner Carolyn Lewellyn,
(the only one of the five with no connections in real estate,
land development or the escrow business) worried about
inconveniencing those who had driven all that way. She
suggested that when the public arguments were re-
scheduled, they be heard in the community itself, for the
convenience of those affected. Commission Chairman
Howard Martin was dead set against it. "It doesn't make
sense," he said, "to drive all the way to the Santa Clarita
Valley when it's so much easier to meet right here."
The commission report
While the rebels of Canyon, San Gabriel, South Bay and
Las Virgenes look for a way out, a prestigious Public
Commission on County Government has spent a year
looking for a way to bring everybody in. "Public knowl-
edge of and confidence in county government are low,"
warns the commiseion's final report. "Its remoteness and
low visibility are important elements underlying the four
major movements now working to secede from the county.
Citizens participate very little in decision-making, and
the structure is not built to respond when citizen opinion
Newhall Signal , published in the town of Newhall. The is formed and presented."
Newhall Land a nd F arming Company would be the While there are more than 100 advisory boards, com-
largest taxpayer in the county. It owns hundreds of acres missions and committees to counsel Los Angeles County
of flat land in the Santa Clara flood plain. Supervisor Bax- officials, those who serve on the panels often find they're
ter Ward does not mention the Newhalls by name but wanted only as window dressing - meeting the require-
makes it clear whom he's talking about when he warns, ments for state and federal grants but having no access to
"The interests are, I think, interests that want control of the decision-making process. One such group was ap-
zoning or development, that kind of thing .. . and they are pointed to develop affirmative action plans to aid the
utilizing the people's concerns about the tax dollars as a county in hiring and promoting more minorities and
means of gaining the control they selfishly seek." women. "It spent two years producing a report and then
On the other hand, secession leaders claim the existing watched it filed and forgotten," the Public Commission
Regional Planning Commission has done such a terrible says, "without even the courtesy of an explanation of the
job of shaping the Santa Clarita Valley that the develop- reasons for which it was being ignored." A Citizen's Ad-
ment pattern is a major factor in the residents' determina- visory Planning Council tried to warn the Planning Direc-
tion to get out. They'll show you the hflltop subdivision in tor, Planning Commission and Supervisors that the gen-
high-hazard fire and earthquake country, with only one eral land-use plan they were developing in 1973 was il-
narrow street in and out to be shared by rescue equipment legal. But council members were totally cut off from all
118 CALIFORNIA JOURNAL