Money, Message Keys for Valley Secession Group

A San Fernando Valley activist group is just three months away from launching a petition drive to start a process that could carve up the nation’s second-largest city.

But leaders of the group, known as Valley VOTE, confided last week that they still lack the volunteers and the funding needed to kick off a campaign that could turn the Valley’s suburban sprawl into the sixth-largest city in the country.

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

Last week’s events show with new clarity the difficulties of translating Valley discontent into political reality. Other powerful interests, such as Mayor Richard Riordan, the City Council and downtown business groups, have vowed to stop 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 convincing a majority of voters to support it--will take several key ingredients, some of which the movement now lacks, according to politicians, academics, and secession opponents and proponents:

* Money. One secession proponent estimated that the campaign could cost up to $5 million. Although Valley VOTE continues to refuse to disclose its finances, it is clear that the group is short of the money needed.

* A strong, united leadership. The Valley’s leadership is bitterly divided on secession. Many are putting their faith in an effort to rewrite the 72-year-old city charter to address Valley discontent.

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

Still, leaders of Valley VOTE are confident that they have what it takes to succeed.

“You need the public’s desire for change, which exists. You need the public’s dissatisfaction with the status quo, which exists, and you need a desirable solution to the problem, which is Valley independence,” Close said.

How strong is the sentiment for secession? That is a matter of debate. A Los Angeles 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 Close’s 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. Success would trigger a study of the economic impact of secession, which would be the first step toward scheduling an election.

The last time a California city split to form separate municipalities was more than a century ago, when Coronado broke away from San Diego.

Last week, Close asked local lawmakers to submit legislation to extend the petition period to six months. They note that the three-month deadline applies only to large cities in Los Angeles County; cities elsewhere in the state have six months.

Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) has asked the state legislative counsel to issue an opinion on whether current law might allow for the longer deadline.

If Valley VOTE’s petition drive is successful, the Local Agency Formation Commission would have to study the viability of an independent Valley city.

If the study showed that a Valley city would generate enough taxes to survive, the county Board of Supervisors could put Valley secession to a citywide vote. A secession, however, would require the support of a majority of the voters in the Valley and the rest of the city.

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

If more volunteers do not materialize, 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 the total cost could reach $5 million, not only to collect signatures, but also to hire attorneys to ward off dozens of potential legal challenges.

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

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

Most Valley business and community leaders supported legislation last year to eliminate the City Council’s power to veto secession. But since then, leadership and unity have fractured over tactics.

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 take 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,” she said.

Former Assemblywoman Paula Boland, the key figure in the legislative victory last year, is listed on Valley VOTE’s letterhead as the “founder of current effort.”

But she said her main interest lately has been the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which she considers a more realistic goal than splitting up the city.

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

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

“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 a 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 next week to gauge the Valley’s interest in a secession.

Close concedes that Valley VOTE does not have a recognized leader like Howard Jarvis, who headed the Proposition 13 drive.

Instead, he hopes the group can put together a panel of leaders representing communities throughout the Valley.

“Ultimately, various groups will converge, each with their own constituency,” he said. “What we need is a majority of the Valley.”

Finally, the movement must win the support of a cross-section of Valley residents by clearly expressing the desired outcome of a 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.”

Such a clear message could create support in minority communities in the northeast Valley, where the secession movement has yet to catch on.

“For a mobilization to really occur, there has to be some positive identification with the new city,” Cahn said.