Riordan Meets Local Secession Bid Leaders

The tone was gentle, there were no threats, but the message from Mayor Richard Riordan Friday was clear: Don’t split the city, fix it.

Riordan told several dozen of the the 80 commissioners he has selected from the San Fernando Valley that they should drop “disruptive” talk of political secession and focus on reforming the city charter.

That has been Riordan’s public position for years, but despite the uniqueness of the forum, and Riordan’s obliquely-stated efforts to rein them in, Valley secession leaders were, for the most part, undaunted.

“I don’t think he picked us to be a bunch of yes-men,” said Riordan’s 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 L.A. and establish an independent city. Scott, a West Hills lawyer, is among them.

Scott, who is also a committee chairman with the secession-minded group Valley VOTE, argues there is no contradiction in his roles of commissioner and a backer of efforts to move the Valley toward secession.

But Riordan begged to differ. “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 the mayor 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.”

But Rodriguez downplayed the mayor’s displeasure at the secession-related activities of some commissioners, saying Riordan intended Friday’s meeting as “gentle reinforcement” not threats--a reminder that commissioners should devote their talents to serving the whole city, not just the Valley.

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 until their terms expire.

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

The city’s 250 commissioners, with a few exceptions, have advisory powers only.

They are nearly all appointed by the mayor to serve four year terms on the city’s 50 commissions, overseeing matters as weighty as land-use policies--and as obscure as “quality and productivity” in city government.

About 80 of the appointees are from the Valley, double the number of a few years ago, Riordan said. He repeated the point several times as he reeled off a laundry list of improvements to Valley services during his administration.

Police chief Bernard 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.

The movement to break the San Fernando Valley, home to 1.2 million people, from the rest of the city has been gathering force for several years. Leaders include longtime activists in Valley homeowner and business groups who also tend to be those most involved in civic affairs, and most likely to volunteer to serve on city commissions.

The group Valley VOTE, which counts among its members several city commissioners including those working on charter reform, is leading the charge toward secession. The group plans to gather petitions with 180,000 signatures, the first step towards cityhood. The petitions would trigger a review of the Valley’s proposal to form its own city. A vote on the issue could follow.

At the same time, under pressure from the separatists, the city is trying to introduce reforms that would redress some of the Valley’s most commonly-voiced grievances, thus taking the sting out of secessionist furor.

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

But many secessionists find no contradiction in working both angles at once. Said Paula Boland, former state legislator who serves on the Elected Charter Reform Commission: “I want the options.”

If the proposed changes to the city’s charter don’t prove satisfactory, then she will feel no qualms about pushing for the Valley to become it’s own city, Boland said.

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

And those his remarks seemed aimed at most pointedly, took the chastisement 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.”

Said Lee Alpert, a board member with Valley VOTE and building and safety commissioner: “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 would, however, continue to support efforts to explore secession as an option, he added.