(Note: I wrote this essay in 2010 as part of a larger, satirical piece. Not much has changed.)

Whenever I describe my community to someone, I provide a disclaimer explaining that although we’re located within the Santa Clarita Valley, Stevenson Ranch is a suburb situated in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County and not in the City of Santa Clarita, itself.

For some, this distinction may seem minor, a tweaking of semantics. But the truth of the matter is the City of Santa Clarita is perceived as somewhat of a punchline to the rest of the world. Santa Clarita is an anachronism, a throw back to Mayberry, a place ruled by white, Christian townsfolk. But where Mayberry was quaint and benign in its segregated tales of small town life, the hate and discrimination spewing from the Santa Clarita City Hall makes for a backwards, out of-touch community to be avoided at all cost. (The tourism department can use that on their posters, if they want.)

Culturally, the City of Santa Clarita lacks an identity. On one hand, it wants to emulate the charm of Mayberry, with its cowboy poetry contests and Founders’ Day festivals. On the other hand, it strives to be Beverly Hills North, with upscale boutiques, exclusive clubs and spas. Perhaps this dichotomy, itself, is its identity. “The Town that Doesn’t Know What it is.” Which, I might add, sounds a lot better than “Awesometown,” the tagline heard and seen in recent advertisements, touting Santa Clarita as a great place to live.

To be fair, going by its physical attributes, alone, the City of Santa Clarita is a beautiful place. There are plenty of green, well-maintained parks, public swimming pools and a variety of massage parlors from which to choose, affording individuals the right to have one happy ending after another, at the time and place of their choosing.

But “awesome”? What’s so awesome about a city that has a councilman who refers to himself as a “proud racist,” and fellow council members who refuse to denounce him? What’s awesome about one of their colleagues who breaks campaign ethics rules to get elected and then pleads ignorance of the law?

When the city council voted unanimously to pass seven non-binding resolutions supporting discriminatory federal anti-immigration legislation — including “English only” — was everyone telling themselves how “awesome” they were? Under what section of their job descriptions does it instruct these city officials to endorse pending federal legislation on behalf of their constituents?

Council members should represent everyone under their jurisdiction, not just fanatical extremists. Their job is to build roads, maintain parks and keep citizens safe, and to pay for it all, they must collect revenues by attracting new businesses to the community. Unfortunately, when demagogic yokels are in charge, they have the reverse effect.

One can only imagine all the small businesses the council members have chased away by imbuing public policy with their own prejudices. Why would any company with a Spanish-speaking clientele, for instance, want to come anywhere near the City of Santa Clarita? Or what about the business people who already work here, who have to explain to their customers that the opinions expressed by their elected officials do not represent the views of their company?

There is a huge Latin American supermarket on Lyons Avenue. By all accounts, Vallarta is a successful operation that hires hundreds of locals, and serves the needs of the entire community, including those who speak Spanish. I am familiar with this particular establishment because my wife often sends me there to purchase a half-moon of delicious queso fresco, or, as the Anglocentric City Council would prefer to call it, “Cheese from that Place Across the Border.”

One of the ironies of the whole English-as-the-Official-Language movement is that English is made up of words and phrases that have been adopted from languages all over the world. Thus, which parts of the English language would EOL advocates choose to deem “official”? Which parts would they keep, and which would they toss out? If we were to remove the words that have permeated into our daily nomenclature from French, Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese and Greek, our lexicon would suffer and so, too, the continued advancement of our democracy.

English is a language in flux, continually developing, flowing like lava over the vastness of our ideas and thoughts, filling in gaps and holes, creating new words and phrases and assigning new connotations to old ones. The fact that most EOL Advocates don’t believe in evolution is immaterial; English is constantly evolving, with or without them. To aggrandize English over all other languages is to inhibit the flourishing of thoughts and ideas and progress.

The reason the Unites States has no official language is because for over two-hundred years we have been free to interpolate concepts and ideas drawn from every corner of the world into our own consciousness, facilitating our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness at a level beyond any other nation in history. And the only reason one would wish to make English “official,” is to institutionalize discrimination against those for whom English is not their first language — and in Santa Clarita, a large portion of those citizens happen to be Hispanic.

By passing these non-binding resolutions, the city officials are able to extol English-language superiority, while convincing themselves they are not engaging in discrimination. “You do not speak the Official Language, therefore you are less-than-equal to me, but I am not a racist.”

Did the council really think it was a good idea to endorse proposed legislation — non-binding or otherwise — that tells employees and customers of companies like Vallarta that they are not equal to everyone?

Right now, there is a greater than 60% vacancy rate for commercial property located within the City of Santa Clarita. Sure, some of it can be attributed to the economy, but a large factor is that many companies simply have not bought into the concept of “Awesometown.”

There is nothing awesome about discrimination; it is as bad for business as it is for humanity.

In the ten-plus years I have lived in the Santa Clarita Valley (in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County — not the City of Santa Clarita), there has been a movement by the City to annex my town — essentially transferring governmental responsibility for the community of Stevenson Ranch to the auspices of the City of Santa Clarita. It has shown up on the ballot in various incarnations every couple of elections.

Why would anyone vote for this? Right now we are governed by the five-member County Board of Supervisors, who do not try to force their opinions on anyone. It’s a very thin layer of bureaucracy, and relatively easy to get the ear of any of the supervisors. We enjoy protection of the county Sheriff and Fire Departments.

Does anyone really think our taxes would go down if we become part of Awesometown? Or that our home values won’t take a hit?

Our community of Stevenson Ranch — located in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County and not in the City of Santa Clarita, by the way — has done just fine without that added layer of awesomeness from them city folk.

BLM