Open Valley Campaign’s Books

The citizen group battling to break off the San Fernando Valley from Los Angeles launched a constitutional salvo this week, arguing that it should not pay the cost of verifying 200,000 signatures collected during a six-month ballot petition drive. Rather, Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, or VOTE, wants residents from Long Beach to Lancaster to foot the bill for its folly.

The amount of money at stake is relatively small by the standards of L.A. County government, about $250,000. But if VOTE gets its way, county taxpayers could find themselves on the hook for millions more. Residents should ask themselves whether they really want their money funding a secretive group with unclear agendas.

VOTE leaders dropped off their signed petitions Wednesday at the Local Agency Formation Commission. The petitions demand that the Valley be incorporated as its own city--even though VOTE leaders tirelessly claim that all they want is a study of whether secession is viable. As it has with other cityhood campaigns--most recently in Calabasas and Malibu--the commission asked the petition gatherer to pay the cost of verifying the signatures. VOTE balked.

Requiring consumers of government services to pay for those services is not exactly a new idea. Everything from marriage licenses to development permits has fees attached. Courts generally accept these fees as legitimate--except when they are so high that they create an unreasonable obstacle. The question, then, is whether $250,000 is unreasonable for VOTE.

Only VOTE knows the answer. Although it wants taxpayer money, the group is unwilling to reveal who funds its operations. It has reluctantly disclosed its top donors--among them the Daily News, car dealer Herbert Boeckmann and lawyer David Fleming. But for a group pressing for better, more open government, VOTE is surprisingly secretive.

If the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors waives VOTE’s verification fees, taxpayers could find themselves also paying for secession movements in San Pedro, Eagle Rock and Playa del Rey. Even those costs, though, would be small compared with the millions of dollars a full-scale secession study probably will cost.

A practical solution exists. Los Angeles city and county can share the costs with VOTE--and make it clear that this is an extraordinary case. Sharing expenses for both the verification of signatures and the upcoming secession study fairly spreads costs and gives VOTE a financial stake in the divisive process it has launched. But no public money should be spent until VOTE opens its books.