By SHELLY GARCIA
Staff Reporter
They’re at it again.
Palmdale and Lancaster, which routinely squabble over which one gets the next new car dealership or Wal-Mart, have begun playing out their sibling rivalry on, well, a more dramatic stage. The two neighboring Antelope Valley cities are about to begin competing for the lucrative film location business.
The Palmdale City Council this month allocated $82,000 for a film office to attract location shoots to the area. But Lancaster city officials insist that the Antelope Valley Film Office, established less than two years ago, markets all of the Antelope Valley (Palmdale included) and a second office would be redundant.
“I was amazed,” said Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts about word that Palmdale was setting up its own office. “To my knowledge, we served Palmdale well.”
Not exactly, said Palmdale’s Mayor Jim Ledford. “We’ve seen their brochure, but I don’t think it has any services for Palmdale in it,” he said.
Palmdale and Lancaster have competed for business for years, undercutting each other’s deals to attract companies to their cities.
“There’s always been a sibling rivalry going on between the two cities, and often it comes in the area of economic competition,” said Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster.
The latest squabble actually got going about five years ago, when the two cities began discussions about setting up a film office to represent the entire area.
Long a favored locale for Westerns, the Antelope Valley more recently served as the location for the border road scene from the opening sequence of “Men in Black.”
The flat, rocky terrain can double for Arizona, Texas or Mexico; the fields of three-foot-high grass can stand in for America’s heartland; and the sandy, high-desert areas can look like the Middle East.
Lancaster officials claim they gave Palmdale the chance to join in for $100,000, but the city chose not to ante up.
Palmdale says it turned down the offer because it wanted an accounting for the money and because Lancaster insisted on housing the film office in its city.
The Lancaster City Council went ahead and financed the Antelope Valley Film Office, contributing $100,000 a year to the salaries of a film liaison and part-time office staffer, promotional brochures and a video for the area and other marketing activities.
Although the film office is located in Lancaster, it also provides filmmakers with information on available services and locations in Palmdale, the film office said.
“What’s good for the whole valley is good for each of us,” said Mary Ryckebosch, president of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce.
Since the film office was established in 1997, location filming has brought an estimated $26 million to the Antelope Valley economy, said Jeff McNeil, the film liaison for the Antelope Valley Film Office.
The California Film Commission, an agency that tries to keep filming from going outside the state, says film companies prefer one-stop approval centers. For that reason, the commission agrees that establishment of a second office in the Antelope Valley would be detrimental.
“We look for methods where the industry can best be served,” said Pam Powell, deputy director of the California Film Commission. “In this case, that ability is best done with a single contract.”
