Work for Unity, Riordan Urges

The tone was gentle, but Mayor Richard Riordan’s message Friday was clear: Don’t split the city, fix it.

At a meeting in Van Nuys, Riordan told several dozen of the 80 commissioners he has selected from the San Fernando Valley that they should drop “disruptive” talk of Valley secession and focus on reforming the City Charter.

Valley secession leaders were, for the most part, undaunted.

“I don’t think he picked us to be a bunch of yes men,” said Planning Commission Vice President Bob Scott. “So it should come as no surprise to him that we should serve the city and at the same time reserve the right to be active on behalf of our local communities.”

The group, meeting at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, included a few of the most vocal supporters of efforts to split the Valley from Los Angeles and establish an independent city, including Scott, a West Hills lawyer.

Scott, who chairs a committee of the secession-minded group Valley VOTE, says there is no contradiction between his roles.

But Riordan disagreed. “Work for charter reform, not for secession,” the mayor said, summing up his message to reporters after the closed meeting.

“My main message is, make the city better . . . and stop doing things to tear the city apart.”

Standing at the mayor’s elbow, Community Redevelopment Agency Commissioner Keith Richman made the point more succinctly: “You can’t be on both sides of the table at the same time. I honestly look at it as insubordination.”

Richman’s comments underscored the mayor’s view, said press secretary Noelia Rodriguez, adding that Riordan wanted to get across the message that “there needs to be caution about speaking out of both sides of one mouth. How can you talk about charter reform and try to split up the city?”

Added Rodriguez: “As appointed city commissioners the mayor expects his city commissioners to perform in the best interest of the city of Los Angeles. Breaking up the city is something that’s not in the best interest of the city.”

Asked if the mayor would ask for resignations from commissioners who persist in speaking for secession, Rodriguez said:

“That has not come up. . . . The mayor would rather focus on working with commissioners.”

In fact, officials with the city clerk’s office said removal of appointees from commissions is a rare and potentially difficult step. In the past, commissioners have been known to refuse a mayor’s request to step down.

Moreover, asking commissioners to resign “would really backfire, inflaming secessionists all the more,” said Jeff Brain, co-chairman of Valley VOTE, which seeks to put the secession issue before voters. “It would be perceived as retribution.”

Eighty of the city’s 250 commissioners are from the Valley, double the number of a few years ago, Riordan said. He repeated this point several times as he reeled off a laundry list of improvements to Valley services during his administration.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Fire Chief William Bamattre also attended. Each gave a brief synopsis of improvements their departments have made in services to the Valley.

The cost of replicating such services were the Valley to become a city would surely increase taxes, the mayor said. “Make what you have better rather than do something disruptive,” he said.

Riordan stressed Friday that the reforms, encompassing two separate efforts to revamp the city’s 72-year-old charter, are the answer to political discontent in the Valley, not secession.

Commissioners on both sides of the issue reacted favorably to the mayor’s presentation Friday.

And those to whom his remarks seemed aimed most pointedly took the reproach in stride.

David Fleming, a fire commissioner who favors a plan to break the city into semi-independent subregions, said the meeting “was like a family gathering.”

Lee Alpert, a board member with Valley VOTE and building and safety commissioner, said, “Without coming out and saying it, [the mayor] has made a lot of us think about what we might lose in the Valley . . . if we just broke away.”

He will, however, continue to support efforts to explore secession as an option, Alpert added.