Hayden May Use Secession Bill to Advance Reform

By waiting to commit himself on the Valley secession bill, state Sen. Tom Hayden said Friday, he hopes to play a pivotal role--and perhaps forge a compromise measure--if the legislation makes it to the Senate floor next month.

The leader of the Senate, Bill Lockyer, was also talking secession Friday, suggesting the bill might not pass unless it is amended to include a citywide, instead of a Valley only, vote on secession.

“A citywide vote is maybe sound policy when somebody wants to leave,” Lockyer said Friday in a meeting with Times editors.

Both Lockyer (D-Hayward) and Hayden (D-Santa Monica) predicted that the full Senate will vote on legislation that would ease the way for Valley secession before the session adjourns at the end of August.

“The time for dealing with it is now,” Hayden said at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Westside Civic Forum. “We will succeed one way or another.”

The legislation was introduced earlier this year by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills), who is opposed to amendments. The bill has sparked a wide-ranging discussion on whether the city serves its residents--and ways to improve that service.

Lockyer weighed in on the debate Friday.

He said he is sympathetic to feelings Valley residents have of being underserved, but is concerned that rushing headlong into dividing a “great city” could lead to balkanization.

“There’s a mood among a great segment of the electorate, which is, ‘We’re not in the lifeboat with them,’ ” Lockyer said. “We’re going to have our gated communities and our toll road and our private schools and to hell with ‘them.’ ”

Lockyer predicted the Senate vote would be a “close call.”

By Hayden’s reckoning, Boland is a few votes shy of the 21 she needs to pass the bill in the Senate. One of those votes, perhaps the deciding one, could be his. That could put him in a bargaining position to get what he wants from the bill.

Though Hayden supports the main thrust of the legislation to remove the veto power of the City Council over an area seeking to secede, he views the bill as incomplete. He wants the bill coupled with reform of the obscure agency empowered to rule on the viability of a secession bid.

“Lifting the veto is not enough,” Hayden said.

A bill by Hayden to reform the agency, called the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, was rejected by a state Assembly panel recently, though it could be revived on the Senate floor.

Hayden views secession as a last resort, preferring instead to reform Los Angeles at the neighborhood level. “The right to secede should be there, but it should be the most difficult right to exercise,” he said.

In a significant departure from the view of Boland and supporters of her bill, Hayden said he has become convinced that the entire city, not just the Valley, should vote on secession because the size of the area makes it a radical change for all Los Angeles residents.

“A citywide vote is justifiable on moral, political and legal grounds,” said Hayden, who is contemplating running for mayor of Los Angeles next year.

Despite that position, Hayden said he would vote against including a citywide vote requirement in the Boland bill because opponents of the bill, particularly the city of Los Angeles, are asking for a citywide vote as a strategy to kill the legislation.

“The city of Los Angeles is very obstinate,” Hayden said. “They could drive me into voting on the Boland bill, but I wouldn’t be happy.”

Boland has said previously that she opposes amending her bill, because doing so could lose her the support of some senators. She was unavailable for comment Friday, but a written statement from her office said she would respond after talking with Hayden.

As was pointed out by other speakers at the breakfast forum, secession is not necessarily the goal of those who are backing the bill.

Businessman Jeff Brain, the co-chair of Valley VOTE, a group lobbying for the bill, said the issue is returning power to voters to determine their own destiny.

But some members of the group take a more militant view.

“Los Angeles is unmanageable [and] is unresponsive,” said Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. President Richard Close, co-chair of Valley VOTE. “It’s almost impossible to do business in this city because it’s just too large.”