In an effort to avoid the scores of complaints about street closures that marred last year’s otherwise successful Amgen Tour of California Race in Santa Clarita, city officials announced today some unusual steps to inform the SCV’s vast, uninvolved and ingorant masses about street closures ahead of tomorrow’s race.
“We’re a proactive and agile city, and so when we were talking about the best way to inform Santa Clarita’s 250,000 residents about city-wide street closures this weekend, we decided to think outside the box,” city spokeswoman Gail Ortiz told SCVTalk.com in an exclusive interview.
The “unusual steps” employed by the city range from the practical to the paranomal: beginning Friday morning, the city will deploy a massive blimp with an electronic billboard, a sky-writing airplane that will scrawl “Warning: Street Closures Ahead!” in the skies above Santa Clarita, and a 75 person team of psychics who will use their seance and paranormal powers to imprint Amgen Tour street closure information in the minds of hundreds of thousands of ignorant Santa Claritans.
“Basically the 107 people who normally attend council meetings and the 19 people who read the Signal all know that several streets will be closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Ortiz said. “The 100,000 out-of-towners who will watch the race also know, but they don’t live here and won’t be using our local streets.”
“That leaves 249,874 Santa Clarita Valley residents who are so uninvolved and ignorant of this community that they literally have no idea of the massive street closures ahead,” Ortiz said, pointing to a map of the SCV shaded entirely in light red, denoting general community ignorance.
Last year’s Amgen Race was an outstanding success for the City of Santa Clarita, drawing 100,000 participants on a sun-soaked Saturday that featured trick bikers, live music, and the colorful peloton as it rocketed through central Valencia in the biggest international event ever in Santa Clarita.
But the celebration was marred in the days and weeks that followed as hundreds of ignorant, uninvolved, and self-absorbed residents flooded The Signal’s letters to the editor section complaining that street closures and traffic delays had forced them to cancel mani/pedi appointments, delay soccer practice, and end shopping excursions at the valley’s big shopping centers.
“I missed a hair appointment because the city closed streets near my salon for a bunch of stupid men in biker shorts!” one loathsome woman wrote The Signal.
Some detached, egocentric complainers even ventured out of their shells and learned that there was a local government agency named the City of Santa Clarita where they could air their empty, shallow complaints to the City’s leaders.
“How dare you shut down McBean Parkway and all those other streets my taxpayer dollars paid for,” one selfish man said at a March 2007 council meeting. “Do you have any idea how long I had to sit in traffic on Saturday?”
Ortiz says that planners last year thought most residents would find information about street closures on the city’s website, on banners placed on paseo bridges, or in the numerous articles in the local press. What the city didn’t know, however, was that most residents of Santa Clarita don’t even realize there is a place called Santa Clarita and thus have no idea of where to get such information. This year’s efforts are designed to inform that vast group of people.
The effort begins tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp when a city-owned blimp will take off from its airstrip in Agua Dulce. The blimp carries a massive, scrolling electronic billboard that will read “Attention! Street Closures Ahead! Google Amgen Race!” in bright, flashing colors. The blimp will also play music from loudspeakers so as to draw the uninvolved masses’ attention sky-ward.
Then, at 12 pm, during the height of lunch hour, a city-owned smoke-writing plane will scrawl street closure information above several areas in the SCV and perform acrobatic stunts above several shopping centers.
But the most unusual effort to inform SCV residents about street closures will start at 10 p.m. tonight in a cavernous, dark and misty hall in an Industrial Center building rented by the city. There, 75 trained and industry-leading pyschics will use crystal balls, holy beeds, sacred stones, and miracle oil to imprint and cast a spell on Santa Clarita’s 250,000 residents while they sleep unaware in their beds.
“The power and all-encompassing nature of the spirit realm is tailor-made to help the City convey street closure information to those blissfully unaware of the race,” Ravenna Wolf, one of the psychics told SCVTalk.
Wolf then sprinkled holy oil on the same map Ortiz referenced, and whispered an incantation in an anciet Druid tongue.
Ortiz said that after this year’s race is over, “no one will be able to say we didn’t do our best to inform them of street closures.”
Impacting tomorrow…