Boland’s Goal Service, Not Spotlight

Reports that Paula Boland’s political career was dead appear to have been premature.

After being forced from the state Assembly because of term limits and losing a bid for state Senate in November, the controversial Republican from the northwest San Fernando Valley proved her popularity was still intact by winning a post on the city’s new charter reform panel last week.

Boland insists that the commission post is not an attempt to step back into the political limelight. Nor, she says, did she seek it as a way to boost her confidence after a tough defeat.

Rather, Boland says, the unpaid post offers a chance to overhaul the city’s complex and, some say, outdated 72-year-old charter and thus improve government services for Valley residents.

Does this conflict with Boland’s dogged efforts to pass a bill that would make it easier for the Valley to secede? Not according to Boland, who says secession and charter reform are both viable means to improve local government.

“It’s not a conflict at all,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to give people their choice. It’s their democratic right.”

Boland is coming off a year of incredible highs and difficult lows. Her bill to help Valley residents form their own city had failed before. But last summer, she stunned the statehouse with a legislative sneak attack to win Assembly approval of an identical bill. For weeks, her name appeared in banner newspaper headlines.

In a short period, the former Granada Hills real estate broker who was elected to her Assembly post in 1990 emerged as one of the city’s most recognizable political figures.

But her good fortune began to fade in August, when her secession bill was defeated in a Senate committee on the last night of the legislative session.

In November, former federal prosecutor Adam Schiff beat her handily in a bid for a Senate seat based largely in the San Gabriel Valley--a district that was long considered a GOP bastion.

Only a month after her defeat, a measure to create the charter reform panel qualified for the ballot. Boland said she was still clearing out her Sacramento office and reestablishing her life with her family in Granada Hills when friends suggested she run for the reform post.

Boland was hesitant at first, saying she wanted to decompress for a while from the November campaign. But she said she felt obligated to run because the drive to put the charter reform measure on the ballot grew out of Valley secession talk.

“I was just tired, but I realized that it was something I had to do because it started with my bill,” she said. “I felt I needed to be there to be sure this was going to accomplish what it needs to do to bring the city together.”

Boland’s chief opponent for the reform post was Keith Richman, a physician and businessman who was endorsed by city labor unions. While Richman raised more in campaign contributions than Boland, she matched his funding with hefty financial support from Mayor Richard Riordan. She ultimately received 52% of the vote, compared to 30% for Richman.

“A lot of the victory was due to her name recognition,” said Steve Afriat, Boland’s campaign consultant on the charter reform race. “She identified with issues that are very popular with the San Fernando Valley.”

Outside of the city, the reform post has little significance. In fact, the improvements that Boland and the 14 other panel members will recommend for the charter may ultimately be rejected by voters.

But Boland insists that it is still a good opportunity to overhaul a dysfunctional and out-of-date government system.

She said she has not set her sights on any other political seat, and she insists that she did not seek the post because of an insatiable drive to be in the public eye.

Still, some political pundits suggest politics is in her blood.

“I don’t think she would have run for state Senate unless running for something was part of her personal identity,” said Parke Skelton, a political consultant who worked on Schiff’s race against Boland.

But Afriat says Boland has never suggested she wanted to use the post as a steppingstone to higher office.

“When we have talked, it’s about her role in charter reform. She feels it’s a way to fix City Hall,” he said.