SANTA CLARITA — The City of Santa Clarita has agreed to be annexed by Mentryville, the historic 19th century oil drilling town on the west end of Pico Canyon Road, according to a press release issued by the City Council.

“For years, we’ve been trying unsuccessfully to throw our city back a century or two,” noted Mayor Laurene Weste. “By officially becoming part of this old-fashioned, traditional community, Santa Clarita can finally be true to our wholesome conservative values.”

“We can paint everything in black and white,” added Mayor Pro-tem Marsha McLean, “and it’ll be just like living in Mayberry!”

The annexation was narrowly approved by Santa Clarita voters in a special election. “I don’t know nothin’ about no Mentryville,” said one resident. “But if Frank Ferry thinks it’s a good idea, then dagnabit, so do I.”

Weste noted that the empty commercial space, which has plagued the city for years, will be a “natural fit” with the old one-room school house and other dilapidated structures in this 150-year-old ghost town.

The Santa Clarita City Council will be dissolved immediately, and management of the new town, to be renamed “MentaritaVille,” will fall under the jurisdiction of 163-year-old local saloonkeeper Cowboy “Buck” McCormick, who also serves as Sheriff and Justice of the Peace.

Theodore Roosevelt, who died in 1919, will be recognized as the current U.S. President, and former council member Bob Kellar will head up a posse to keep them injuns out of the territory.

Although women will no longer be able to vote in the new community, they will be allowed to have a job, where they can earn up to 35 cents for every dollar made by their male counterparts.

In a “Welcome Note” tacked onto a nearby oak tree, Sheriff McCormick tells the erstwhile Santa Claritans, “If anyone is thinkin’ of causing any trouble, think again.”

It is this philosophy that has kept Mentryville crime-free for over a hundred years.

Added McCormick: “I don’t want no trouble, you hear?”