Secessionists Set May 30 Launch for Petition Drive

While angry debate continued on where to draw the borders, an activist group set May 30 as the date to a launch a petition drive to start the legal process of creating a San Fernando Valley city.

Members of Valley VOTE said they will begin collecting the required 135,000 signatures just before the June 2 primary elections so that volunteers can gather signatures near polling booths.

Valley VOTE leaders said they have 3,000 volunteers--about half the number they had earlier predicted were needed to collect the signatures to prompt a study on Valley cityhood.

Meanwhile, however, the group’s effort to draw boundaries for the proposed Valley city has already created some bad blood. On Wednesday, the group agreed that the proposed Valley city boundaries would exclude Hollywood Knolls, an exclusive community east of Universal City, because most residents prefer to remain in the city of Los Angeles.

Although Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain described the decision as amicable, Paul Ramsey, a member of the Hollywood Knolls Community Club, said residents are not happy because they had insisted that a commercial strip in front of Universal City--including two major hotels--also remain part of the city of Los Angeles.

He said Hollywood Knolls residents want the commercial portions of Universal City to remain within Los Angeles so that Hollywood Knolls residents have more say over noise, development and traffic matters there.

“That is a major issue for our community,” Ramsey said. “We are very upset.”

Valley VOTE also decided that the Valley’s borders would include the hillside community south of the Cahuenga Pass even though residents there say they oppose being included.

Brain said he asked community leaders in the Cahuenga Pass for a survey of homeowners on the matter. When the group failed to provide that, he recommended that Valley VOTE include the community within the Valley city’s proposed borders.

But Florence Blecher, president of the Cahuenga Pass Property Owners Assn., said her group clearly opposes being included in a new city and has the support of residents in the hillside community.

“Our residents feel that we are in the Hollywood Hills not the San Fernando Valley hills,” she said.

Blecher said her group wants Universal City excluded from the Valley city boundaries.

“We also feel that it is Universal Studios Hollywood not Universal City San Fernando Valley,” he said.

If the petition drive succeeds, a regional state agency--the Local Agency Formation Commission--will be required to study the feasibility of Valley secession. The study must conclude that a Valley city can be self-sufficient without financially harming the city of Los Angeles before the matter can go on a citywide ballot for a final vote.