Valley Leader in Reform Bid Moves to Create Panel

Breaking ranks with Los Angeles city officials, a San Fernando Valley leader in the movement to reform the city charter announced plans Wednesday for a petition drive to authorize a proposed citizens panel to submit reform measures directly to the voters.

David Fleming, an influential Studio City business leader who teamed with city officials to lead a charter reform effort, said he fears the City Council would otherwise quash reform measures eroding the council’s power.

Due to that concern, Fleming and about 50 Valley leaders said Wednesday they are launching a petition drive to allow a citizens panel to bypass the council and put the measures directly on the April ballot.

It will be no easy task. Fleming and the other Valley leaders must collect more than 200,000 signatures on a petition by the end of October.

“The timing on this doesn’t give us luxury to wait,” said Fleming, who also heads the city’s Fire Commission. “We are going to be hard pressed to do this now.”

To help in the process, Fleming and several Valley business leaders submitted a letter to Mayor Richard Riordan Wednesday, asking him to back their effort.

“We sense that you believe, as we do, that to be truly free one must have the right to have free choice,” the letter states. “We are therefore asking you as our mayor to help us place an initiative on the ballot next spring.”

The letter was also signed by Marvin Selter, chairman of the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn., and Gary Thomas, president of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, among others.

Speaking through an aide, Riordan said he understands the frustration of Valley residents but has not decided whether he will back the initiative process.

“It certainly sounds as though the community and business leaders in the San Fernando Valley are ready for change,” he said. “‘I am now seriously considering what my role will be in their efforts.”

To combat a Valley secession drive, Fleming teamed with Councilman Mike Feuer and other city officials last month to propose the appointment of a citizens commission to draft charter reform measures to give residents more power.

The 70-year-old city charter establishes the system of government for Los Angeles.

Under the original proposal by Feuer, a 24-member citizens commission appointed by the council, mayor and other elected officials would meet over a three-year period to draft ideas to restructure city government.

Proponents say the reform effort could, for instance, include the creation of community councils that would have the power to finance local improvements and decide neighborhood planning issues.

But because state law allows only elected bodies to place measures on the ballot, the proposed reforms would first have to be submitted to the council, which could amend them before sending them to the electorate, or ignore them altogether.

Fleming’s petition drive will attempt to make the citizens commission an elected body in its own right. With that status, it could place its proposed measures directly on the ballot without council approval.

“This City Council has just not gotten to the point where they will release a draft that will give us power,” he said.

Feuer, however, said he still hopes for a compromise with Fleming, but gave no details of what he would find acceptable.

“We need a broad-based degree of support for charter reform,” he said. “I want to talk to David Fleming to fashion a unified approach.”

But Feuer said he too understands Fleming’s mistrust of the council. “It’s hard to change the status quo,” he said.