Valley Business Owners Split on Secession Idea

Talk to business people in the San Fernando Valley about their dealings with the city of Los Angeles and they’re nearly unanimous: It’s a hostile place, with cumbersome rules and regulations.

But ask them whether breaking the Valley away from the city would solve their problems and their opinions become more divided: It’s either a bad idea or worth a try, depending on who’s talking.

“I look at this [secession] as a rush to judgment,” said Sy Feerst, a Canoga Park printing broker. “What the hell would we have gained? There is no magic bullet in breaking away.”

Many business owners say they have little interest in a secession proposal because they believe the biggest problems are in Sacramento, not Los Angeles City Hall.

Take Jeff Bush, president of Optiphase Inc., a Van Nuys firm that makes advanced sensors used in aircraft and satellites. In New York, he said, the state provides matching funds when high-tech companies like his win certain federal contracts. California offers no such incentives, he said.

“But I wouldn’t see any of that changing if the Valley seceded from the city.”

Pat A. Zicarelli, president of Style Realty in Tarzana, said he would “like to wait and see what posture the city is taking, rather than putting Band-Aids” on the Valley’s problems.

Zicarelli thinks that, for now, the best course is to work within the Los Angeles city government for reforms on issues ranging from the distribution of police to education matters. Only if the problems aren’t resolved does he believe that a step as drastic as secession should be considered.

But many in the business community say they are ready to support secession now. They worry that the city has become so large and unwieldy that little gets accomplished. And they express frustration over everything from an inhospitable city bureaucracy to the absence of coordinated efforts to assist businesses.

That sentiment has helped Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) rally support for her bill that would make it easier for the Valley to break away by stripping the City Council of the power to veto a secession request.

Indeed, the idea of secession prompts a gut-level response from some small-business owners, like Paul Avganim of APA Automotive Center in Woodland Hills.

Avganim reels off a litany of complaints about doing business in Los Angeles. “It’s very difficult to deal with the city, with the Fire Department,” he said. Burdensome fees and taxes, duplicate licensing requirements, massive paperwork and costly inspections have made him think seriously of moving away, he said.

Recently, for example, Avganim applied to the city to expand his business by adding to his work area with a canopy. The permit got snagged on a single point: His restroom didn’t meet requirements for disability access, he said. “They needed it to be 8 feet by 8 feet and mine is 8 by 6,” he said. “So what am I supposed to do? Put an extension to the building? . . . It’s unbelievable.”

Tom Hilborn, who runs an automotive shop in Reseda, agreed. Secession “is an excellent idea,” he said. Los Angeles has “a lot of regulations that in my point of view are pretty much a waste of time.”

For small, neighborhood businesses like Hilborn’s, simple quality-of-life issues like street cleanliness are key. “Businesses need to have attractive and safe areas to do business,” he said. Aesthetics, crime--all that kind of stuff can be done more efficiently if [a city] is smaller. . . . Los Angeles is just too big.”

Patricia Everett, owner of Corporate Fine Arts of Chatsworth, which sells art to businesses, said she didn’t know if secession is a good idea. “But I hope this will really get the attention of City Hall,” she said. “I feel really ripped off that we haven’t gotten any other mass transit out here. We’ve been paying taxes for 50 years, and we still haven’t seen an east-west rail line.”

Trudi Friedman, vice president of Collection ‘85, a small Pacoima manufacturer of lamps and accent furniture, said she is fed up with seeing companies leave Los Angeles or go out of business, which she blames partly on the city government. When people lose their jobs or move away, that hurts her business, Friedman said. The public education system is another problem, she said, because “you can’t get good employees. They can’t read. They can’t write.”

So, Friedman said, “anything is worth a try. When you’re working as a smaller entity you might have more of a say.”

The frustration with city government isn’t restricted to small businesses. Brian McDermott, chief executive of Leslie’s Poolmart, a large swimming pool supply retailer based in Chatsworth, also has a “visceral positive reaction” to the idea of secession.

McDermott recalled that when Leslie’s opened a distribution center in Dallas, the city sent an ombudsman to help the company clear all the regulatory hurdles. That allowed Leslie’s to open the facility quickly and took the guesswork out of estimating its costs.

“Here, there is no such thing,” McDermott said. “You never know what’s going to be around the next corner.”

But McDermott said he would want more information before supporting a breakup plan.