Castaic residents are considering either annexation or creating their own city.

The Castaic Town Council contacted the Santa Clarita’s Mayor Laurene Weste recently regarding the possible annexation of the Castaic area into the City of Santa Clarita.

Castaic is currently exploring the options of either being annexed into the City of Santa Clarita, or forming a new city. This is part of an ongoing saga with the Castaic and West Ranch Town Councils being upset with the City of Santa Clarita in recent months regarding Santa Clarita’s increases in Parks and Recreation fees to Santa Clarita Valley residents outside the City boundaries. Both areas are clearly exploring their options to be out from under Los Angeles County’s rule in an effort to obtain some level of autonomy.

The annexation process requires obtaining signatures from 60% of the property owners supporting the annexation before moving forward with the annexation process. After the signatures are obtained, the City would perform a fiscal analysis to determine the financial impact of annexing that area. The Santa Clarita City Manager’s Office is assuming that Los Angeles County currently receives more revenue than it spends in the Castaic area, so the fiscal impact shouldn’t be an issue.

California state law currently favors annexing into an existing city instead of creating a new city, since it apparently provides greater financial incentives for annexation.

The City Manager’s office also points out that if Castaic were to form a new city within the limited geographic boundaries of the Santa Clarita Valley, it could create financial and planning disadvantages for both sides. Santa Clarita doesn’t want to find itself in the position of having bidding wars with a newly formed neighbor city for tax-generating business that may want to move to the Santa Clarita area.

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