Secession Campaign Gets Rolling

Signaling the start of a vigorous, full-time campaign, a San Fernando Valley group seeking a vote on whether the Valley should secede from Los Angeles has rented a storefront and hired a staff and two lawyers to navigate the complicated legal and political effort.

Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment--operating out of its new Ventura Boulevard headquarters--has retained Barry Fadem, the lawyer who helped draft the petition to create the California Lottery, and Clark Alsop, a respected land-use attorney who has worked in the creation of new municipalities for 20 years.

The two men conceded Tuesday that the task ahead will not be easy. There has not been a similar secession effort completed in California for more than 90 years.

“We view ourselves as technicians in a very long and complicated process,” Fadem said.

It also will be expensive.

Valley VOTE has estimated the campaign could cost up to $2 million. The group has begun to seek contributions and filed an application to become a nonprofit organization.

Richard Close, co-founder of the group, declined to discuss how much money the group has raised so far, but it is apparently enough to rent a Sherman Oaks office and hire real estate broker and Valley VOTE co-founder Jeff Brain as its full-time executive officer.

Officials of the state Fair Political Practices Commission said the group will be required to publicly disclose its financial records after expenditures reach $5,000.

The secession effort gained momentum in October when Gov. Pete Wilson signed a bill that eliminated a city council’s authority to veto a breakaway approved by voters.

Valley VOTE was the bill’s most vocal advocate even though it has no official position on secession. Its stated mission is to put the matter before city voters.

But many of its members support a breakaway, saying the Valley has long been ignored by a distant and inefficient Los Angeles city government. Secessionists argue that a separate San Fernando Valley municipality will be closer to residents and provide better city services, such as police protection and street repairs.

The first step in the process is for the group’s new attorney--Fadem--to draft a petition that asks the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), a state agency composed of local appointees, to study a Valley secession.

To prompt the study, Valley VOTE must first collect signatures from 25% of registered Valley voters, or about 135,000 signatures. The signatures must be filed with county officials within 30 days of the petition’s completion.

The group hopes to begin collecting signatures in April and submit the petition to county officials by July 4.

That is only the first step.

Before the question can be put to a citywide vote, the LAFCO study must show that a Valley secession will not create a financial burden for any resulting municipalities.

Fadem said the petition will be crucial to the effort. It must incorporate both the group’s mission, he said, as well as arguments to persuade signers that a secession study is needed.

“We want to make the petition as good as it can be because it is the first thing the voter will see,” he said.

Fadem is a partner in the San Francisco law firm of Bagatelos & Fadem. He is specialist in campaign and election law, and lists among his clients the California Teachers Assn. He helped write the petition that created the California Lottery in 1984.

Fadem and Alsop said they will spend the next few months researching any legal question that may arise.

“By the time we have the petition drive, we will have all the answers,” Fadem said.

Once the petition has been submitted, Alsop will work to steer the secession movement through LAFCO. He is a partner in the Riverside law firm of Best, Best & Kreiger and was an attorney for LAFCO during the incorporation drives that created Calabasas and Malibu.

To pay for its growing expenses, Valley VOTE organizers say they are commemorating top contributors with special titles. The first 2,000 Valley residents who contribute $1,000 each earn membership to the “Valley 2000 Team,” which is symbolic of the effort to put secession on the ballot in 2000.

Contributors of $5,000 will be dubbed “benefactors,” and contributors of $10,000 or more will be listed as “forefounders” of the movement.

Close and other Valley VOTE members said they expect the city of Los Angeles and other secession opponents to challenge the campaign in court.

Fadem and Alsop will represent Valley VOTE against any legal challenges, Close said.

“We hope for the best, but we plan for the worst,” he said.