A Sprint to Finish for Secession Camps

With the long-awaited vote on whether to break up Los Angeles just hours away, activists on both sides of the secession fight took to the streets Monday, knocking on doors in a last-minute effort to win support the old-fashioned way -- voter by voter.

In activities that ranged from the daffy to the down-home, secession opponents posed with superhero look-alikes on Hollywood Boulevard, held two rallies and walked precincts, crisscrossing the city in a campaign day that started just after dawn.

Secession supporters staged quieter activities, working the phones and walking precincts. Proponents of Hollywood secession, led by nightclub owner Gene La Pietra, whizzed back and forth across the Los Angeles Basin, working the phones and issuing press releases from their brightly painted Santa Monica Boulevard headquarters, zooming across town to Pasadena for a five-minute interview with a British radio show and heading back to Hollywood for more campaigning.

Voters will decide today whether Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley should be separate cities. On the ballot, Valley secession is Measure F and Hollywood cityhood is Measure H. For either to win, it must receive a majority of yes votes in the secession region, as well as in the city at large.

On the stump in Toluca Lake, City Councilman Tom La Bonge stopped at every house on a stretch of Hortense Street, urging voters to oppose secession.

“I’m your councilman,” he told them. “And I want to be your councilman on Wednesday after the election.”

In contrast to recent polls showing secession trailing, nearly everyone La Bonge encountered expressed support for the measures, although several changed their minds after speaking with him.

Language coach Gino DeFulgentis, who had favored secession, questioned La Bonge closely on the pros and cons of breaking up the city, and agreed to consider the councilman’s arguments.

“I’ll know the moment I’m there in that voting booth,” DeFulgentis told the councilman. “The fact that you’ve come to speak to me means a lot.”

At the headquarters of the San Fernando Valley Independence Committee, the scene was laid-back, with the telephones quiet as half a dozen people pored over laptop computers and worked on plans to boost voter turnout in the Valley.

Karen Moran, spokeswoman for the campaign, said it was more important to spend time encouraging Valley residents to vote than to stage a rally on the day before the election.

“At this point, a rally would be a waste of time,” she said.

Jeff Brain, president of the secession group Valley VOTE, was holed up in his Sherman Oaks apartment, writing a final campaign flier, which he said would be faxed to 5,000 people and e-mailed to 8,000 more.

He predicted victory for the colorful, moderately funded campaign.

“We have strong support in the Valley and strong support on the other side of the hill,” Brain said. “People will recognize that the Valley has the right to be independent.”

Eleven candidates for office in the proposed Valley city held a news conference on the periphery of an anti-secession rally at Valley College in North Hollywood. The event devolved into a scuffle, with shouting and shoving between union members and the candidates.

“This has been a good campaign,” said David Hernandez, who is running for Valley mayor. He said the campaign had brought Valley residents closer and focused attention on the region’s blighted areas.

“What this has done is put Pacoima back and bring the Valley together,” Hernandez said.

On the secession ballot, Valley voters will select 14 city council members and a mayor. They also will pick a name for the new city from five choices. The winners of the races will take office only if secession wins. The same is true for the candidates seeking five city council seats on the Hollywood ballot.

Earlier Monday, union leaders staged a get-out-the-vote drive and a caravan of two retired firetrucks, an ambulance and a school bus with banners urging residents to vote against secession and for trauma center funding in Measure B.

The first stop for the caravan, after it left San Pedro at 6:30 a.m., was a morning rally at Chesterfield Square in South-Central Los Angeles where Mayor James K. Hahn told 300 activists that secession will hurt the Valley, Hollywood and the rest of Los Angeles.

He said the breakup would result in less money being available for city services.

“We can make the city better. City workers are doing it every day,” Hahn said. “Let’s stay together and make Los Angeles the best city in America.”

Accompanied by City Council President Alex Padilla, Hahn worked the lunch crowd at Art’s deli in Studio City and then met the labor caravan at North Hollywood Park.

Padilla addressed the 100 precinct workers at the rally in Spanish and English. “Los Angeles is one big community. We are one family.”

Later, Hahn danced with a woman at the Valley College rally, as speakers blared the Randy Newman tune, “I Love L.A.”

Richard Katz, chairman of the Valley secession campaign, spent the day calling voters and doing last-minute bookkeeping. “I’m very proud. We’ve done a phenomenal job.”