Santa Clarita community leaders are gearing up for two lobbying trips this spring — a seventh-annual journey to Sacramento next Monday and the first annual trip to Washington, D.C., in May.

About 80 people representing Santa Clarita government, business and education will head to Sacramento on Monday for a two-day series of 14 meetings with Gov. Jerry Brown and other officials. The meetings will center on topics such as water bonds, the state’s K-12 and community college budgets and redistricting, said Carl Goldman, owner of KHTS AM 1220 and one of the trip’s organizers.

“There are two new components this year,” Goldman said of the agenda. “Filming-tax credit and high-speed rail.”

Goldman said Mayor Laurie Ender, City Councilwoman  Marsha McLean, College of the Canyons Chancellor Dianne Van Hook and Chamber of Commerce President Teri Crain are  among the attendees in the group — which has more than doubled in size since the first trip in 2006.

Five local school district superintendents are going, and there will be representatives from the film, nonprofit, building and banking industries, as well. Most people are financing their own costs for the trip.

After the Sacramento trip, city leaders will prepare to discuss many of the same concerns in Washington, D.C., when about 25 representatives will visit in early May to meet with Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Sacramento trips had been such a success that the city also decided to organize an annual trip to the nation’s capitol, Goldman said.

The diversity of attendants creates an impact each year.

“What we’ve learned with these trips is all these legislators have lobbyists in front of them all the time,” Goldman said. “But it’s totally different when in a room you have 80 people not related to the issue advocating. We can show there’s a broad consensus.”

While the exact agenda hasn’t been finalized for D.C., Goldman said the issues that local leaders want to try to address on the three-day trip include community colleges, No Child Left Behind, health care reform, the building industry and water issues.

“We want to build the foundation for this,” Goldman said, “so that next year in 2013, we can go back to D.C. and have known that we made some impact in 2012, and make an even bigger impact in 2013.”

Space is still available for the Washington, D.C. trip and those interested can contact Goldman at carl@hometownstation.com.