Valley Secession Drive Lacks Volunteers, Money and Message

A San Fernando Valley secessionist group is just three months away from launching the petition drive that ultimately could create California’s second-largest city.

But leaders of the organization, Valley VOTE, said last week that they have neither the volunteers nor the funds to run the campaign that one day could transform Los Angeles’ sprawling suburb into the nation’s sixth-largest city.

“This is a very difficult task in that you need to have thousands of volunteers standing in front of supermarkets to do this,” said Valley VOTE co-founder Richard Close.

The organization’s situation significantly clarifies the difficulties of translating the Valley’s popular discontent into political reality. Mayor Richard Riordan, the City Council and moneyed interest groups, such as downtown business organizations, have vowed to prevent a city breakup.

As Studio City attorney David Fleming put it: “It is the divorce of the century.”

Simply getting secession on a citywide ballot--let alone persuading a majority of voters to approve it--will require several key ingredients, according to politicians, academics, opponents and proponents:

* Money. One secession supporter estimates that the campaign could cost more than $5 million. Valley VOTE has never disclosed its financial status, but it is clear that the group is well short of that figure.

* A strong, united leadership. The Valley’s leadership is bitterly divided on secession. Many influential residents are putting their faith in an effort to rewrite the 72-year-old City Charter.

* A clear message that cuts across class and race. Thus far, secession movement leaders have had more success selling their proposal to middle-income homeowners than to lower-income minorities in the northeast Valley.

Even the strength of Valley voters’ pro-secessionist sentiment is unclear. A Times poll in 1996 showed that 46% of the Valley’s registered voters would support secession. But only 22% would be willing to pay higher taxes to support it.

Still, the poll confirmed secession proponents’ frequent assertion that Valley residents feel underserved by City Hall. The Times poll found that nearly half of Valley residents feel shortchanged.

Under the law, the group must first collect 135,000 signatures on petitions in the Valley within three months. If Valley VOTE’s petition drive succeeds, the state’s Local Agency Formation Commission would have to study the financial viability of an independent Valley city.

If that study showed that a Valley city would generate enough taxes to survive, the county Board of Supervisors could put the Valley secession to a citywide vote. Secession, however, would require the support of a majority of the voters not only in the Valley, but also in the rest of the city.

No California city has split into two municipalities in more than 90 years.

Valley VOTE hopes to launch its petition drive in May and submit its signatures by July 4. Close estimates that it will take 6,000 volunteers to collect the necessary signatures, but he said that only 2,000 have come forward so far.

If more volunteers cannot be found, Close said, the group may have to hire paid petition circulators, at a cost of $1 to $5 per signature.

Bobbi Fiedler, a former Valley congresswoman who supports secession, estimated that the total cost could reach $5 million, not only to collect signatures but also to hire attorneys to fend off dozens of potential legal challenges.

To fund its campaign, Valley VOTE has launched a drive that asks contributors to donate and “be a friend of the Valley.”

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Regardless of cost, the secession movement needs strong, united leadership, observers say.

Fiedler, one of the most avid secessionists, has split from Valley VOTE, arguing that the group needs to take a clear position in support of secession rather than a middle-of-the-road stand to simply study it.

“It’s simply too much work to ask voters to support an effort that is only going to study secession,” Fiedler said.

Former Assemblywoman Paula Boland, who last year led the successful fight in Sacramento to eliminate the City Council’s ability to veto secession, is listed on Valley VOTE’s letterhead simply as the “founder of current effort.”

Today, she said, her main interest is breaking up the massive Los Angeles Unified School District, which she believes is a more realistic goal than splitting the city.

Fleming and Herbert F. Boeckmann, a Los Angeles police commissioner and owner of a Panorama City auto dealership, also were strong supporters of the bill to remove the council veto.

But Fleming said he and Boeckmann have not joined Valley VOTE because they believe that secession is the last resort, to be considered only if charter reform fails.

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“I would prefer keeping the city together,” Fleming said.

They have formed the San Fernando Valley Civic Foundation, which is attempting to raise $300,000 to investigate the costs and benefits of secession.

“If we secede, it’s like a divorce,” Fleming said. “You need to know what your assets and debts are.”

The foundation also plans to commission a poll to gauge the Valley’s interest in secession.

Finally, the movement must win the support of a cross-section of Valley residents by clearly expressing the desired outcome of secession, said Matthew Cahn, director of the center for Southern California studies at Cal State Northridge.

Thus far, he said, Valley VOTE’s message has not caught on because the leaders have yet to explain how a new Valley city would benefit its residents.

“It can’t simply be a matter of ‘the city of Los Angeles is bad and we are better,’ ” he said. “It has to be a clear vision of what we will be. I have not seen any of this articulated.”