More Time Sought for Secession Petition

Conceding that they are 4,000 volunteers short, leaders of a group seeking a vote on a San Fernando Valley secession have asked local legislators to give them more time to complete their petition drive.

Leaders of Valley VOTE fear that they may not be able to meet a three-month deadline for collecting enough signatures, and have asked for legislation that would grant them a 90-day extension.

A bill adopted last year that strips the City Council of the power to veto secession requires the Valley group to collect 135,000 signatures as the first step toward an eventual citywide vote on the issue.

“That means we have to collect 2,000 signatures a day, and that may be too much,” said Jeff Brain, co-founder of Valley VOTE.

Co-founder Richard Close estimated that Valley VOTE would need 6,000 volunteers to meet the deadline, but conceded that, so far, only 2,000 people have expressed support.

The extension request, disclosed at the first Valley VOTE meeting open to the media, is the first indication the movement may be in trouble.

“Ninety days to get one out of four voters [in the Valley] is going to be tough and expensive,” said Close.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Riordan, who has vowed to oppose any secession effort, said the request for an extension is evidence of a lack of popular support for the movement.

“We are gratified if people are thinking twice about whether this is the best way to spend their energy,” said Riordan aide Stephanie Bradfield.

“We think there are other options for fixing the city, such as charter reform,” she said.

Bobbi Fiedler, a former Valley congressman who supports secession, but has broken with Close and Brain over political strategy, criticized Valley VOTE for rushing the petition drive.

It is not impossible to collect the 135,000 signatures in three months, she said, but the effort must be well planned and well financed.

“You don’t start something like this until you have your ducks in a row,” she said.

If volunteers cannot be found, Close said the group might be forced to hire professional petition gatherers, which he said Valley VOTE cannot now afford. Such professionals charge up to $5 per signature.

Close and Brain both declined to discuss the group’s finances, except to say that funding comes from “contributions from individuals.”

But Close said the organization still is committed to getting the signatures needed to prompt a study of a possible Valley city by the Local Agency Formation Commission. If the study shows that an independent city is feasible, the county Board of Supervisors can put the question of a Valley secession to a citywide vote.

Valley VOTE had planned to begin circulating petitions in May and hoped to have a citywide vote in 2000.

In hopes of increasing its membership, Valley VOTE leaders are speaking at community gatherings throughout the Valley. The group is focusing in particular on building support in the minority communities of the northeast Valley, where the secession movement has yet to make much of an impression.

But getting lawmakers to adopt legislation to extend the petition period would be very difficult at this point.

The deadline for submitting bills to the state legislative counsel for review and analysis was Jan. 16. The deadline for introducing legislation in the Assembly is Feb. 20.

And even if such a bill were adopted, it would most likely not take effect before January 1999. The Legislature can adopt an emergency measure that would take effect immediately, but that would require a two-thirds majority vote of both houses.

Close noted that the three-month petition deadline applies only in Los Angeles, while secession efforts in other parts of the state have a six-month deadline. He said the extension is simply intended to bring Los Angeles in line with the rest of the state.

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) said he would consider introducing a bill to extend the petition period, but warned that it would not be easy.

“This late in the year, it gets tougher and tougher,” he said. “I’m just scratching my head wondering why they didn’t bring it to anyone sooner.”

A spokesman for Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), who co-authored the bill to eliminate the council’s veto power, said the lawmaker cannot introduce the bill because he has already introduced the maximum 30 bills allowed for each lawmaker in a two-year period.

The other coauthor of the secession bill, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Granada Hills), would not commit to introducing the bill. His spokeswoman, Jennifer Cressy, would only say: “We are looking into it.”

Fiedler speculated that it is hard to motivate voters to simply study secession. She said the petition would have more success if voters were directly asked to back a breakaway from the city. Close and Brain insist that Valley VOTE was organized simply to push the petitions that would trigger the study, not to push secession itself.

“When Valley VOTE changed their mission to get away from secession, it became clear to me that they couldn’t possibly accomplish this without a great deal of difficulty,” she said.