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‘Cactus Curtain’: the thorns of pride

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Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris (38124)
Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford (38125)

While Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill remain fiercely divided regarding the nation’s fiscal and social path, Palmdale and Lancaster continue to wallow in their own political “sandbox.” Instead of “reaching across the aisle” for camaraderie, solutions and goodwill, the respective city halls are firmly entrenched on each side of the so-called “Cactus Curtain.”

It’s an old term, probably dating back to 1962, when Palmdale broke away from Lancaster to become the first city in the Antelope Valley to incorporate. Until then, both communities appeared to share responsibility for developing the desert landscape into a livable, workable and profitable alternative to the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, as well as making the region the world leader in aeronautics innovation and production with Edwards Air Force Base at the center. The biggest battles encountered then amounted to little more than the annual high school football rivalry.

Fifty years later, a dividing line has emerged at Avenue M, the thoroughfare that effectively divides mayors R. Rex Parris of Lancaster and his counterpart, Jim Ledford, in Palmdale. And like a determined “goal line stand,” each side is not budging—whether the subject be retail or auto malls, solar plants, federal lawsuits, election strategy, the use of parklands and even fireworks sales. Parris is nearing the middle of his third term as mayor of Lancaster (the city was incorporated in 1977); Ledford is serving his 11th term as mayor of Palmdale.

The cities are demographically and economically similar, but the two political leaders have an almost nonexistent working relationship—even though the two once served in the Antelope Valley Republican Assembly. From Parris holding up a “Chuckie Doll” at a council meeting this year in mockery of Ledford, to the former claiming the latter is a “bully” running his own “fiefdom,” the rhetoric has been strong and often vitriolic. Today, Palmdale puts out a regular email to the press debunking what it claims are “unsubstantiated” public statements from Lancaster, with the latter city quickly following suit.

The war of words may have begun in earnest in 1990 with the construction of Palmdale’s Antelope Valley Mall on Rancho Vista Boulevard. The mall eventually lured away  Lancaster’s J.C. Penney and Sears stores, touching off a continued campaign of economic warfare which, by Parris’ estimate, has cost both cities more than $100 million in lost revenue. The mall’s location was bitterly contested for several years until Palmdale offered the developer millions in incentives to build on the site near Highway 14 in the city.

Two years later, Palmdale built an auto mall . . . Lancaster built its own shortly afterwards. While both auto malls were to receive millions in government aid to stay in business, Palmdale eventually won the “stare down” when it decided to take full control of its facility from the various automakers for $6 million … along with the promised federal aid.

In 1993, Lancaster gave $7.3 million in redevelopment funds to a developer to help build a Costco; later the city handed over 4.5 acres of parkland to keep the big-box retailer pleased. In short order, Palmdale city hall agreed to refund up to $2 million in sales tax revenue in a successful effort to entice Dillard’s department store not to open in Lancaster and to come to their city. Like a high-stakes tennis match, the economic ball has kept bouncing across Avenue M.

In 1999, the California Legislature passed AB 178, a measure that was intended to prevent cities from luring a neighboring jurisdiction’s large retail store or automobile dealership. That measure was co-authored by former Lancaster Mayor George Runner and allowed for sales tax-sharing agreements in cases where a retailer does relocate. This was supposed to halt the Lancaster-Palmdale rivalry, but by the year 2000 relations between the two cities had gone even more sour. At that time, representatives of Costco, which wanted to expand its Lancaster store, made it known that Palmdale city officials had itself offered a tempting package—a free building and free land if Costco would relocate.

Although Palmdale officials back then denied they had made such an offer, Lancaster officials refused to believe the story and fought to keep the sales tax-generating big box outlet.

Both cities went back and forth for a decade courting new business coming to their respective towns. Now the rhetoric has gone beyond mere revenue and sales tax disputes—it’s become personal.

In a 2010 State of the City Address, Parris said he wanted to keep Lancaster a “Christian community”; at that time Ledford was a member of a county task force on hate crimes and labeled Parris’ comments as “hate speech.” That same year, Parris requested sheriff’s deputies to go to a meeting of the Antelope Valley Transit Authority where Ledford was present. Parris told constituents later that he had wanted to “seal the meeting” as a crime scene after he discovered that the agency’s acting director, Randy Floyd, was being investigated for extortion. (Parris was not actually attending the meeting).

The battle of words reached a high point last year when Parris, a trial attorney, decided to help the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP sue Palmdale for racially biased elections, noting to the press then that his relationship with Ledford had become a “lost cause.” According to media reports, he proceeded to depose Ledford for more than six hours in a frequently confrontational interrogation whose topics reportedly ranged from the brand of Ledford’s heart medication, to the personal finances of Ledford’s wife.

Late last month, Parris and fellow attorney Kevin Shenkman requested on behalf of their clients that the courts legally stop Palmdale from holding its regularly scheduled municipal election. The two originally sued the city of Palmdale under the California Voting Rights Act claiming that the existence of alleged racially polarized voting in the city prevented minority candidates from being elected. Both Lancaster and Palmdale utilize an “at-large” system for elections, but the Lancaster legal team petitioned the court to force Palmdale to halt any election until officials there switch to a district method.

A superior court judge issued an injunction halting the Nov. 5 Palmdale election.

“This decision just provides further proof that Parris and Shenkman are only interested in gouging the taxpayers to line their pockets,” said Palmdale City Attorney Matt Ditzhazy in a press release issued on Sept. 19.

Then came news from the Department of Justice (DOJ) which, in August, demanded that Los Angeles County and the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale pay $12.5 million to those recipients of the federal rental assistance program, also known as Section 8, or risk being sued and placed under a consent degree. This was a rare issue in which both mayors agreed…they contended, they were not responsible for the DOJ payment.

The settlement demand comes after the DOJ concluded in a report released this summer that “… some Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department personnel in the Antelope Valley engage in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional and unlawful policing regarding stops, searches, seizures, excessive force and discriminatory targeting of [Section 8] voucher holders in their homes.”

Parris said his city should not bear any of the burden; Ledford wrote in an email, “The proposed settlement is between the U.S. government and the county of Los Angeles.” Both cities are negotiating the findings, but if either refuses to pay, the DOJ may take the county and both cities to court. “If we are unable to reach an agreement with a party, we would not hesitate to enter into contested litigation with that party,” said DOJ spokesperson Dena Iverson in a email released in late July. Parris released a statement in early August, noting, “We’re collaborating together now, but DOJ is stirring the pot.”

Both cities argue that their alleged crackdown on Section 8 tenants was intended to root out fraud and ensure compliance.

In the late 1990s, Black and Latino families arrived primarily from South Los Angeles, looking for lower home prices; better schools, and freedom from the violent, gang-ridden streets. Three years ago, Whites became a minority populace in both cities, according to a published report.

An L.A. Times article reported among these newcomers were poor persons who once rented homes and apartments with the help of Section 8. Most of these renters were African American and, at the time, the number of local Black Section 8 renters doubled from 510 in 2000, to 1,119 in 2004 and rose to 1,530 by 2008. The Black families were met with immediate hostility, reported the Times; in 2010, the paper reported that the DOJ found that “…the Antelope Valley had the highest rate of hate crimes of any region in Los Angeles County.”

Lately, the sparring match between the two mayors has focused on the solar power plant literally straddling the border of the two towns. Palmdale wants to continue construction, and Lancaster wants to stop it. Lancaster officials say the region’s gusting winds will carry the plant’s reported 546 tons of pollution straight into their domain, resulting in high levels of caustic contaminants. Ledford said last month those claims are unsubstantiated, citing approval of plant construction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Energy Commission. The contentious issue involves the plant location, who will run the plant, its size, emissions and the energy source itself. Because Lancaster is downwind from Palmdale, Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist said the swirling winds of the desert will force pollution into his town thereby causing respiratory distress. “When all of our kids have asthma and you add to that, it’s kind of like putting too much chlorine in a pool,” Crist remarked last month to the online site “CurbedLA.”

Unconvinced of Lancaster’s dire prediction, Ledford fired back: “It’s what they do,” he told CaliforniaCityNews.org last month regarding the accusations. “Maybe [Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist] put it on his bucket list as something he’d like to do. ‘I think I’d like to kill a power plant.’ It’s just immature.”

In June, Parris offered an olive branch to resolve the differences with Palmdale. “What I would like to say is, ‘Mr. Ledford, let’s tear down the curtain’… that cactus curtain is causing real people real pain, and we have to stop doing that,” Parris said in a news conference. He outlined a list of issues he believed could be handled together by a mediator … provided the two sides could agree on who that person would be. Somewhat similar to the famous Paris Peace Talks of the late 1960s when American and Chinese officials found themselves unable to agree on a United Nations negotiator (and even argued over the shape of the table where diplomats would sit to discuss ending the Vietnam War), Palmdale has reportedly rejected the idea of an intermediary. Among the concerns, Parris wants to address are:

• the power plant,

• the Antelope Valley Transit Authority and Metrolink,

• role of local government and citizen commissions,

• local control of the Antelope Valley Fair,

• local AV control of water service,

• unemployment.

“We wouldn’t have an employment problem if the two cities worked together,” Parris said at the news conference. “Unemployment could be about 5 percent instead of 14 percent.”

Former Lancaster Mayor Henry Hearns, a veteran local politician, has tried to bring the two sides together. He’s gotten nowhere. “When I came onto the council, everyone wanted to pick a side on that team,” he told the Los Angeles Times late last month. Hearns left office in 2006, but even at that time there was a civic divide between the two city halls. Once he helped organize a peace march on the anniversary  of the 1963 March on Washington, and even had groups from each city join at Avenue M for a rally of goodwill. “Back then we fought all the time, but it was a friendlier fight,” Hearns noted. “I don’t see how the way things are now is helpful at all.”

The office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovitch, whose fifth district includes the Antelope Valley, will also not fill the role as mediator. “We work closely with both Lancaster and Palmdale, but also with the town councils there (i.e. Acton, Rosamond, California City) which we feel are vital to the growth of the Antelope Valley,” said Tony Bell, communications director for the fifth supervisorial district. “The supervisor established these town councils years ago; these small cities rely on the county for assistance and guidance.” Pressed again for a comment on the Parris-Ledford feud, Bell reiterated: “We’re proud of our good relationship with both city councils.”

Some local organizations have also opted to stay out of the fray. “From our standpoint, we don’t involve ourselves much into such controversies. This takes away from our responsibility of attracting business into Lancaster,” said Sandy Smith, chief operating officer of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. She added that her counterparts in Palmdale have “an excellent” working relationship with her organization, noting that cooperation between the two chambers is mutually beneficial. “We stay out of these matters … our focus is to attract business and to get people working again.” In 1994, both chambers did contemplate a merger when they discovered that local shoppers and business owners began to pay less attention to municipal boundaries. To date, each body remains autonomous but work together outside of the respective city halls to help secure a more business-friendly environment. The mid-1990s represented a business boom in Los Angeles County in general (following the recession of the early ‘90s), and this period may have spurred the start of economic rivalry between the two cities.

For decades, there has been speculation that if both cities merged the result would be a windfall for the Antelope Valley. A grass-roots movement called “City of Antelope Valley” believes that a merger would supposedly save taxpayer money because one central government could supply the same essential services at a lower cost, thus freeing up funds for other city programs such as parks and recreation. Crime could be reportedly reduced through pooling of public safety resources; this method is said to allow for more Sheriff’s deputies who could expand more innovative policing programs and tools to better protect citizens.

Combining Lancaster and Palmdale, they say, would create the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 12th largest in California. Finally, jobs and economic development may be bolstered by pooling economic development resources of both cities to become a stronger competitor with surrounding regions, such as Santa Clarita, Bakersfield and northern Los Angeles County. The citizens’ group also suggests that consolidation would supposedly streamline regional concerns such as the Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District and the Antelope Valley Transit Authority. “This would provide increased accountability and force officials to address the needs of local residents rather than blaming one another’s city for any issues that arise,” according to a statement released on the “City of Antelope Valley” website.

Despite the personal dislike each mayor has for the other, both men have worked diligently with the Sheriff’s Department to reduce crime on both sides of Avenue M. This marks the fourth straight year that Palmdale’s crime rate has dropped below 300 crimes per 10,000 persons, a number that puts Palmdale among the region’s most safe cities. In fact, the city of Palmdale set a five-year goal of  reducing the crime rate to below 300 by 2012, and accomplished this plan two years ahead of schedule. Not to be outdone, Lancaster in 2007 set its own five-year reduction plan and has experienced double-digit reductions in every one of the eight crime categories reported by the sheriff’s department. Burglaries there have fallen by 39 percent since 2011, and car thefts have dropped by 54 percent during the same period.

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