Bernson, Wachs Back Separate School District for Valley

The Los Angeles City Council should promote the breakup of the huge Los Angeles Unified School District, two San Fernando Valley-based council members said Friday, even as a powerful state legislator warned that such a task could take many years.

The comments by Councilmen Hal Bernson and Joel Wachs and Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) reflected the growing support in the Valley for a movement to secede from the Los Angeles district and establish a separate Valley district.

Roberti, the state Senate president pro tem, told a news conference that breaking up the Los Angeles district would be his top priority during the remaining two years of his career in the Legislature.

“I’m going to try to get this done in two years,” Roberti said, but he added that the challenge is so much bigger than he envisioned that it may have to be completed by a legislator who will remain in office after Roberti leaves. He cannot run again because of recently imposed term limits.

Roberti, who until June represented a Hollywood-based district, now represents a district based in Van Nuys and has become the chief Senate backer of the notion of breaking up the sprawling school district. The district is so vast that it is not accountable to students, their parents and taxpayers, Roberti contended.

Bernson, who represents the northwest Valley, remarked in a council meeting Friday that he plans to ask City Atty. James K. Hahn to explore ways the council could help with the breakup.

Wachs, an East Valley representative who is running for mayor, later announced that he and Bernson have scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss their plans for splitting the district--a 723-school behemoth that is the second largest in the country, with a $3.8-billion budget and 641,000 students from San Pedro to Sylmar. The district has been battered by budget cutbacks in recent years and now faces a possible teachers strike.

Breaking up the district “is the hottest issue around,” Bernson said in an interview, calling the current setup “a farce.”

“I want to know what authority the council has in this area,” he said. “I think I know the answer: I believe we can do something to make it happen.”

Although he declined to say whom he consulted on the point, Bernson said it was his understanding that the council has the authority either to hold a secession election in the Valley or to pass a resolution to dissolve the existing school district.

Most legal and political observers, however, have predicted that breaking up the district would be a long and complicated process. Members of the Valley-based secession movement are looking to state lawmakers such as Roberti to pass special legislation allowing them to bypass formidable procedural and administrative requirements imposed by county education authorities.

Roberti said he has not yet decided what type of reorganization bill he will introduce. He said it may simply create two districts. Or, he said, it may call for many smaller districts.