Valley Secession Petitioners May Get Stuck With Bill

Valley activists know they have a fight on their hands over who would pay for a study on the pros and cons of breaking away from Los Angeles.

But they hope to avoid a tussle over something even more basic: who must pay to authenticate the thousands of signatures on petitions that would trigger such a study.

The activists behind Valley VOTE, the group pushing for a secession study, will soon turn in signatures to the Local Agency Formation Commission. If they succeed, secession could be on the ballot as early as 2000.

Petitioners have collected more than 190,000 signatures--well above the 135,000, or 25% of registered Valley voters needed--and plan to keep going until the Nov. 27 deadline.

Now, however, the petitioners are having a difference of opinion with LAFCO over how many signatures must be checked and who has to pay the validation costs.

They argue county elections officials need verify only a random sampling of 3% or 5%, as is commonly done in ballot drives--and they don’t believe they should be charged. But LAFCO officials argue that all the signatures need to be counted, and that activists should pay the cost.

The difference is significant because the charge is $1.36 per signature checked--or well over $200,000--if all must be scrutinized.

Elections officials have asked the county counsel’s office to issue an opinion on the subject, and county lawyers are working on it. Meanwhile, Valley VOTE leaders have sent the county a letter asking for clarification.

“We’re not concerned about counting all the signatures, but we’re concerned that we would have to pay for it,” said Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain. “We believe it’s our constitutional right to petition the government [free of charge.]”

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CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK? Mike Antonovich Jr. is on the way.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich and his new bride, Christine Hu, are expecting their first child this April.

Antonovich said he’s already seen a sonogram of his new child, who will be named Michael Dennis Antonovich Jr.

“He was waving,” Antonovich beamed.

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FEUER FRIENDS: For the second time in a matter of weeks, City Councilman Michael Feuer has run afoul of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., although this time the councilman argues the conflagration is more smoke than fire.

Only last month, Feuer took on the homeowners group over his proposal for a senior housing project that members feared would overcrowd the neighborhood--a tussle that took an ugly turn as homeowners battled the perception that would-be tenants were too old or too poor for their tastes.

This time, Feuer took a drubbing in the group’s monthly newsletter over the purchase of Deervale Canyon to use as parkland.

The newsletter professes the group’s “shock and disappointment” that a portion of the land would remain available for development, with as many as two houses possible on one side, and three in street-side lots on an opposite side.

Feuer, who met with the group’s leaders prior to the mailing of the newsletter, professed frustration at its version of events. The land purchase included a long-planned housing tract--a large section of the canyon currently used informally by hikers as a local getaway, he said. A few properties around the edges were never part of the proposed tract and weren’t purchased. They would have been prohibitively expensive to buy in any case, he said.

But association officials were not assuaged, and say they should have been included in the acquisition proceedings.

“It’s not what we hoped and what we were led to believe,” said association member Marshall Long. “We had expected to be in the loop but we weren’t.”

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FANCY CABINETRY: Now that they’ve seized the governorship for the first time in 16 years, Democrats are doing something they haven’t had reason to do in eons: gossiping about who’s in line for top jobs in the new administration.

Not surprisingly, the list includes many lawmakers who have been or are about to be forced out due to term limits--including a few high-profile Valley politicians.

Former Assembly Democratic leader Richard Katz, who lost a heated primary battle for the 20th state Senate seat to Richard Alarcon earlier this year, confirmed he has been approached about Cabinet-level jobs with Gov.-elect Gray Davis. But he said he does not know how seriously he is being considered and expects Davis to move slowly.

Likewise, aides for Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), who is serving her final term, said they have “heard the talk” about Kuehl being asked to join the Davis administration. But they do not believe Kuehl had been contacted by anyone in the know.

Davis picked former California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz as the head of his transition team on Monday.

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ODD MAN MAY BE OUT: It lasted 20 years, but the revolution may finally be at an end.

The California Peace and Freedom Party, which has been on the statewide ballot since the hippie heyday of 1968, is in serious danger of losing its ballot spot.

To maintain ballot status, a party must either claim 1% of California’s registered voters, or a statewide candidate who garners 2% of the vote.

Peace and Freedom activists have neither following last week’s election. And Jan B. Tucker, a Toluca Lake-based private eye who was the party’s candidate for state treasurer, said it may be time to merge with the Green Party, which espouses a similar radical leftist ideology.

Tucker, who has also run as the Peace and Freedom candidate for governor and president in recent years, said he and other activists are launching a drive to get the 88,000 registered voters needed to stay on the ballot by Jan. 1.

But he said the future of third-party politics in California appears bleak.

“Politics has evolved to the point that there is only one station [in San Francisco] that invites all statewide candidates in for debate,” he said. “Spending has just skyrocketed by both major parties. There’s just no way we can compete.”