Tempers are flaring in the Downtown Newhall area where the City of Santa Clarita proposes to build the so-called "library project", consisting of a proposed 65,000 square foot building with up to 24,000 square feet allocated to a new library and the remainder slated for commercial development. We've been following this story for a while now, where several businesses have been given notices of pending eminent domain actions if these business owners don't accept the "offers" from the City of Santa Clarita for the purchase of their buildings. This offer process is still pending, with business owners expecting to hear from the City in about a week or so. Just the fact that these business owners are being evicted from their long-standing locations is enough to get most of them hopping mad. However, a new wrinkle has been added to this whole process. The options that the City of Santa Clarita has in buying out these business owners are to either buy out their land and buildings and help them to relocate to new facilities, or to completely buy out the business operations as well if the business is unable to find a sufficient location to relocate to. According to some of these business owners, the City is taking actions to make sure that their business revenue is depleted before the buy-out options are presented to those who may have trouble relocating. Lower business revenues would mean a lower buy-out price, since the calculations are based on the value of the business operations including revenues, inventory and other items. According to these business owners, the City of Santa Clarita has been sending out code enforcement personnel to target these businesses for items that were previously allowable in the area. At least one of these businesses is facing a lawsuit initiated by the City in regards to these supposed violations, and a second has apparently been accused of code violations as well. The majority of these supposed violations apparently have to do with awnings and signage that help bring customers to these businesses. Are these just more of the hard-ball tactics that the City is employing to make it as undesireable as possible for them to stay in their current locations, or is there more going on here? Business owners in the "library project" area are rightfully concerned that the City is either trying to reduce the value of their businesses by chasing away customers, or to distract them from the more important eminent domain process by virtue of these nuisance code enforcement lawsuits. Nearby Tresierras Market has apparently abandoned their location already in light of the redevelopment plans for the area, and the other stores in that location are suffering as well, since Tresierras was supposed to be the anchor store that would help bring customers to that location. | 
