Secession Law Touches Off an Identity Crisis for L.A.

Any secession from the Big City faces a host of technical and political challenges, but it also raises heady questions of civic identity:

Are we Angelenos first? Or is it more important to us to be citizens of Venice, San Pedro, Eagle Rock, the San Fernando Valley? Do we want quicker sewer repairs but also need the sense of belonging to a larger whole?

At coffee shops, shopping malls and college campuses across Los Angeles, residents Monday pondered those things with a new dose of reality. Gov. Pete Wilson had signed a bill into law the day before that would make it easier for districts around the state to separate from their current municipalities and form cities of their own.

The new law grew out of San Fernando Valley activism, but it was heartily welcomed by Matty Domancich, who has lived every one of his 75 years in San Pedro. A former owner of local gas stations and a bicycle shop, he is proud of San Pedro and says it has been neglected by politicians 20 miles away in downtown Los Angeles ever since the bigger city annexed the harbor community in 1909.

“As far as we are concerned, we are not part of Los Angeles even though I know legally we are,” Domancich said, adding that he hopes a San Pedro independence movement blossoms soon.

On the other hand, Ilene Blaisch of Granada Hills wants the city she traverses every day to stay whole. “I live in the Valley, but I identify with being a resident of the city of Los Angeles,” said Blaisch, 44, who owns a house in Granada Hills and drives to her job as counseling services director at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. “L.A. has a lot more culture and diversity, and I want to be part of that.”

On its face, the new law removes city councils’ veto power over possible secessions. It requires separate majority votes in both the entire city and the districts seeking independence, and proof that the old and new municipalities won’t sink financially. Indirectly, the legislation raises more gut-level issues such as: Will my water rates skyrocket? How can I make my voice heard? What is Los Angeles, and does it attract or repel?

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Los Angeles has always had a looser civic identity than most other big American cities, according to Richard Willson, chairman of the department of urban and regional planning at Cal Poly Pomona. “It’s a hallmark of Los Angeles culture that people identify with their neighborhood community more than the city,” he said.

Valley secession may trigger passions similar to those raised in Canada by the independence movement in the province of Quebec, Willson suggested. But in the end, Angelenos will base their decisions on bread and butter issues, not philosophy, he said. “I think voters will be quite pragmatic about tax rate, levels of services and perceptions of whether their community will be better off or worse off,” he said.

That seemed to be true for Van Nuys resident Jeff Magro. He said he believes that Valley secession would bring big improvements in municipal services. Magro, who identifies himself as a Valley resident, not a citizen of Los Angeles, cited the city’s slow response to his repeated pleas to repave Hazeltine Avenue as just one example of how Los Angeles is too big to be efficient.

“For the amount of taxes residents here pay, the Valley gets very little out of it,” he said Monday as he sat outside a Sherman Oaks coffee shop on Ventura Boulevard.

In beachside Venice, the idea of a smaller and separate city also appealed to Michael Collins. An independent Venice might be “a nicer place,” said Collins, 34, who has lived in Venice off and on for 20 years. Certainly, the separate city of Santa Monica next door seems to be run better, he said.

Collins, who works in film production, said he goes “into town”--meaning into Los Angeles or Hollywood--once or twice a week, but for the most part his time is spent in Venice, and he doesn’t identify himself as being “from L.A.” unless he’s traveling out of Southern California.

In contrast, Venice restaurateur Glenn Featherstone has lived in the neighborhood all of his 62 years but still feels a part of the entire city of Los Angeles. Besides, he said, Venice secession would not be feasible economically.

“For Venice to pull away, we don’t have enough industry to support us,” said Featherstone, who for 10 years has owned Glencrest Restaurant on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. He suggested that secession would make sense only if Venice were to incorporate with Marina del Rey or Santa Monica.

Many residents still feel attached to the larger concept of Los Angeles, “but now the larger concept of Los Angeles is the concept of diversity. That is what Los Angeles stands for now, not freeways and beaches and sunshine,” said Margaret Crawford, an urban studies professor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. “It is harder to identify with a concept of differences. I love it, but it’s a hard organizing point.”

Javier Peres, a clerk at the Tresierras market in Pacoima, sees the lasting value of a big city. “If I go to Los Angeles, they ask me where I’m from and I say the San Fernando Valley,” said Peres, 20. “But I still want to be part of L.A. We could do a lot more things together than as smaller units.”

Yet at Queens Burgers on Osbourne Street in Pacoima, Jerry Edwards imparted some lunchtime philosophy Monday to support secessions. “The larger a place is, the more insignificant you become. When it’s smaller, the individual becomes more important,” said the 39-year-old West Los Angeles resident.

Rick Cole, former mayor of Pasadena, predicts that such debates will become more common. City, state and national boundaries will become less important in the future as people focus more on neighborhood, regional and international ties, said Cole, who is the Southern California director of the Local Government Commission, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization that studies cities.

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For big cities like Los Angeles to resist secession movements, they will have to provide “a viable, strong identity” that works like an economic and social glue.

It should be possible to have both neighborhood and city pride in Los Angeles, said Frank O’Brien. He has lived in San Pedro for a dozen years, because its strong historical, ethnic and religious ties remind him of his hometown, Boston. “It is one of the real strengths and fulfilling aspects of living in San Pedro,” O’Brien, 39, said. “So when people ask me where I am from, I say from San Pedro or Pedro, and it is something I say with great pride and affection.”

However, O’Brien, who works for a manufacturer in Gardena, said he doesn’t believe that San Pedro would be able to provide municipal services efficiently. So he does not think it should try to secede from Los Angeles.

But Playa del Rey resident Jonathan Hodes thinks citywide identity is missing in Los Angeles. “I feel I identify with my own little community, not Los Angeles,” said Hodes, 52, an attorney who works in downtown Los Angeles. “I think a lot of people feel that way. We don’t have the sense of city identity like New York and other big places.”

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Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Matea Gold and Julie Tamaki and correspondents Deborah Belgum and Sue McAllister contributed to this story.