What
The Opposition Is Telling You
 There
is a single individual, Mr. Steven Huerta, who is spearheading an
effort to derail the annexation. He lives in Upper Stonecrest. Mr.
Huerta has employed a number of tactics to mislead residents into
signing protest forms to oppose the annexation. His tactics include
misrepresenting facts, providing incomplete facts, and outright
lying.
Following are
some of the false claims that Mr. Huerta has made to Stonecrest
residents. We’ve provided some discussion after each.
Click
here to read the letter to the right --->
Claim
- Signing a Protest Form is a request for an election.
This is not
true. If you read the first line of the Protest Form, it specifically
states that you are “opposed to annexation”. There
is no guarantee that an election will occur. In fact, if enough
Protests are signed, the annexation will be terminated, not voted
on. Click here for more information
on the Protest Form.
Some residents
have informed us that when shown the Protest Form to get a signature,
Mr. Huerta actually covered up the first line so the residents
couldn’t read the full text of what they signed.
Claim
– Annexation will eliminate your current LMD firm cap of $700
per year.
This claim
is an example of providing incomplete information. It can be found
in the handout that Mr. Huerta is distributing titled “Is
annexation really in your best interest?” Mr. Huerta neglects
to mention that, overall, annexation will save residents money.
Residents will save an average of $200 a year due to no utility
users tax and over$70 a year due to lower trash collection fees.
Mr. Huerta also doesn’t mention that fees for City recreational
programs are less for City residents. Click
here for more information on the savings the annexation offers.
It should be pointed out that Mr. Huerta lives in Upper Stonecrest.
The LMD is in Lower Stonecrest. He does not pay a fee for the
LMD and is not impacted in any way by the LMD. Are we really to
believe that Mr. Huerta is so altruistic that he will spend hours
of his time over several weeks to fight for his fellow neighbors
against what he feels is an unjust fee; a fee that he himself
will never have to pay? Or is Mr. Huerta simply using this fee
to try and manipulate the opinions of is neighbors about annexation.
We think the latter.
Claim
- The streetlight fee will increase from $5 to $50 and stormwater
fee will increase from $0 to $24.
This claim
is an example of providing incomplete information. It can be found
in the handout. This claim is true, though Mr. Huerta doesn’t
tell you the full story. He intentionally leaves out the fact
that overall residents will save money with annexation, as mentioned
previously. Click here for more on
the savings the annexation offers.
On the issue
of the streetlight fee, Mr. Huerta would have you believe that
the fee pays only for patrols to report malfunctioning streetlights,
something residents can do themselves by calling Southern California
Edison. He doesn’t tell you the full story. Does Mr. Huerta
believe that Edison fixes the malfunctioning lights for free?
That Edison doesn’t charge for repairing damaged poles?
Does he think that the electricity that powers the City’s
streetlights is a gift from Edison at no charge? These are the
things that the streetlight fee pays for but Mr. Huerta conveniently
overlooks.
On the issue
of the Stormwater fee, Mr. Huerta would have you believe that
the County provides the same stormwater services as the City at
no charge. I wouldn’t consider having to pay $200 a year
for the utility users tax “no charge”.
Claim
– Stonecrest residents already have access to City Sheriffs.
This claim
is also in his handout. Mr. Huerta is putting you and your family
in jeopardy by making this claim. It is an example of misrepresenting
the facts. The only situation that you have “access to City
Sheriffs” is in the event of an emergency. Though it is
true that a City Sherriff will respond to an emergency in Stonecrest,
Mr. Huerta does not include the fact that response times in an
emergency are still over 2.5 minutes longer in the County than
in the City.
Mr. Huerta
does not include the fact that City Sheriffs won’t respond
to the more common priority and routine calls and that the response
time for such calls are significantly shorter in the City. He
fails to mention the significantly higher number of deputies and
police programs the City provides that deter crime before an emergency
occurs.
Mr. Huerta
has sunk so low that he will try and deprive you and your family
of increased police protection by misleading you into thinking
you are more secure then you may be. Click
here for more information on Sherriff services in the City.
Claim
– The Cemex mine will be going through
This claim
is also in Mr. Huerta’s handout followed by three paragraphs
in support of the Cemex mine as well as 10 pages of pro-Cemex
press releases and news articles. We are baffled at Mr. Huerta’s
apparent support of the approved 78 million ton mega-mine located
a mile from Stonecrest. How can a resident of Stonecrest, the
closest residential development to this mega-mine, support and
defend the mine? This mine will put one truck every minute on
Soledad Canyon Road for the next 20 years. Our property values,
air quality, safety, and overall quality of life will deteriorate
more than any other neighborhood in this valley! You must ask
yourself why he would support Cemex at the expense of his neighborhood.
What is he gaining?
Contrary to
Mr. Huerta’s claim, the City is continuing to fight the
mine. It is not a forgone conclusion that it “will be going
through”. The City will not stop the fight until all avenues
are exhausted. Click here for more information
about the CEMEX mega mine.
Claim
– Stevenson Ranch and Castaic have been approached to annex
and still have not – ask yourself why?
This is simply
not true. This claim is also in Mr. Huerta’s handout. Stevenson
Ranch and Castaic were never approached to annex. The City does
not approach areas seeking to annex them. It is City policy that
all areas that wish to be annexed must approach the City with
such a request. Such a request can only be made after 60% or more
of the residents indicate that they want to annex. This is what
Stonecrest did. Stevenson Ranch and Castaic have never obtained
support from 60% of the residents and have never requested annexation.
You may instead
want to “ask yourself why” have tens of thousands
of residents supported annexation to the City in the 28 successful
annexations that the City has completed. “Ask yourself why”
not a single Protest Form was submitted by any of the over 6,000
residents of the Northpark and California Canyons annexations
that the City completed in March.
Claim
– Lower Stonecrest got to vote about the annexation but not
Upper Stonecrest. I don’t oppose the annexation; I just want
Upper Stonecrest to get a chance to vote on the annexation.
If Mr. Huerta
simply wants to give Upper Stonecrest the chance to vote, why
is he asking residents of Lower Stonecrest to sign the Protest
Forms? If he truly wants Upper Stonecrest residents to be able
to vote, he should be asking them, and only them, to sign the
Protest Forms. If a small number of Upper Stonecrest residents
sign the Protest Form, it is obvious they support annexation and
don’t desire an election to show it. This should satisfy
Mr. Huerta if his claim is true. The fact that he is approaching
Lower Stonecrest residents leads one to conclude that his motive
is not simply an election for Upper Stonecrest.
Claim
– I won’t collect more than 400 Protest Forms to make
sure that the annexation won’t be automatically terminated
by LAFCO.
After all
you’ve just read, would you believe him? The last time Mr.
Huerta collected Protest Forms he waited until the last minute
to submit them to LAFCO. By doing this he prevented anyone from
being able to see how many he had and who signed them until it
was too late. He can do the same this time. He can collect as
many as he wants, not show anyone, and then submit them at the
last minute again.
Claim
– The City doesn’t want Stonecrest to have a vote on
annexation.
Mr. Huerta
does not speak for the City. Remember, the annexation will be
automatically approved unless a large number of residents sign
Opposition Forms. An election is unnecessary for the annexation
to be completed. The majority of residents support annexation.
Therefore, the desire of the majority can be accomplished without
a formal election. In addition, the election would have to occur
in November, delaying annexation by over 6 months and costing
taxpayers money.
The City does
not oppose an election if that is what residents truly desire.
However, because Mr. Huerta is lying to residents to get them
to sign the Protest Forms, the number of Protest Forms is not
an accurate representation of the true desire of the residents.
Mr. Huerta’s
efforts at derailing the annexation back in February postponed
completion of the annexation. An election would add another 6
months to the process. By his repeated attempts to delay the annexation,
Mr. Huerta will cause you to have to unnecessarily pay an additional
10 months worth of taxes on your utilities and 10 months worth
of higher trash fees. Mr. Huerta’s actions are costing you
money and depriving you of better services!
It is apparent
that Mr. Huerta is intentionally trying to mislead residents through
misinformation, incomplete information, and lies. It is obvious
that he has a hidden agenda: an agenda over which he has no compunctions
about lying and misrepresenting the facts. Don’t be misled
by Mr. Huerta! Don’t let this single individual deprive our
neighborhood of the benefits that it deserves!
If
you want lower taxes, local government representation, and better
municipal services, then support annexation. To support annexation,
DON’T
SIGN A PROTEST FORM.
DON’T BE DUPED INTO SIGNING A PROTEST FORM!
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