Valley Strongly Backs Plan to Revise Charter

In the San Fernando Valley, where a secession threat prompted calls for government reform, voters feel strongly about overhauling the city’s 72-year-old charter, slightly more so than voters elsewhere in the city, a Times poll found.

The poll also showed that Valley voters are in sync with voters citywide, who believe the job of rewriting the 680-page document should go to a panel of elected citizens--a method backed by Mayor Richard Riordan--rather than an advisory panel created by the City Council.

But the Valley and the rest of the city diverged on another issue, with slightly more Valley voters than voters citywide saying they favored granting the mayor’s office more authority.

The poll results represent good news for Riordan, who contributed $575,000 of his own money to get a measure on the April ballot asking voters to create an elected panel to rewrite the charter that serves as the city’s constitution. The poll, of 310 Valley voters, was taken over the past weekend.

Last fall Riordan helped launch a petition campaign calling for the creation of a reform panel. He has argued that the charter is outdated and drives government into gridlock because it disperses authority among 40 commissions, 15 council members and the mayor.

But Riordan’s reform effort has been harshly criticized by most members of the City Council, who see it as a power grab by a mayor wealthy enough to finance his own ballot initiative. In response, the council has created a competing reform panel with only advisory powers.

In the Valley, 69% of the voters said they favor revising the charter, compared with 64% citywide, according to the poll. The stronger sentiment is not surprising, since it was Valley residents who last year began speaking of secession, forcing city officials on both sides of the Cahuenga Pass to take notice.

Valley support for charter reform was higher than the 64% support on the Westside, 65% in Central Los Angeles and 51% in South Los Angeles, according to the poll.

Although the majority of voters citywide said the mayor has about the right amount of authority now, Valley voters--who strongly supported Riordan’s 1993 electoral bid--were slightly more inclined to increase the mayor’s authority, the poll showed.

In the Valley, 39% of voters said the mayor should have more authority, while 45% said he has the right amount, the poll found. Citywide, only 31% said the mayor should have more authority, compared with 54% who said he has the right amount now, according to the poll.

“The Valley voters, along with all city voters, want the city charter reformed and want the charter to be rewritten by an elected citizens panel,” said acting Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus. “However, they are more inclined to want to see the mayor with more power, and that may be because of their high opinion of the current mayor.”

She added: “They went heavily for Riordan in 1993 and it looks like they feel the same about him in 1997.”

In interviews, some of the poll respondents who supported giving the mayor more authority said City Hall red tape and an often fractious council regularly stifle the mayor’s efforts.

“The mayor is trying to do things and the council members are so divided that he can’t run his agenda very well,” said Shlomo Bobrow, a longtime Encino resident who works at a Culver City flooring firm. “He should be able to do a little bit more.”

Karen Potter, a Chatsworth resident, was among the respondents who expressed the opposite view. She said she is “a little leery of giving anyone too much authority.”

Laura Hubbard, a North Hollywood resident who runs a graphic-design business, said she supports revising the city’s charter because it has not undergone a wholesale overhaul since it was written in 1925.

“It seems to me that the city has changed a lot since then, and I think the charter should be up to speed,” she said.

Hubbard also echoed the sentiments of other respondents who said the job of revising the charter should be delegated to an elected panel because members of an appointed panel may be beholden to the elected officials who appointed them.