Poll Gives Valley VOTE Lift

Leaders of the group pushing for San Fernando Valley secession said Wednesday that they were surprised by a Times poll that found 60% of Valley voters, and 47% of voters citywide, favor cleaving the Valley from the rest of Los Angeles.

Richard Close of Valley VOTE, which recently collected signatures from 132,000 Valley voters to force a study of secession’s economic repercussions, said the findings should prove beyond any doubt that many residents favor a breakup of the city. He predicted the results would lead vacillating elected officials to jump on the secession bandwagon.

“I was shocked at how high the numbers are in favor of cityhood, both in the Valley and the rest of the city,” Close said. “I’ve always said our No. 1 goal is smaller, more responsive city government, and that seems to be what residents want as well. We haven’t even begun a campaign yet, and already there is surprising support.”

But Mayor Richard Riordan, one of secession’s most ardent foes, had a much different reaction to the findings of the Times poll, conducted by telephone last week. Riordan said he was convinced that the support highlighted in the poll--which showed an election on secession today would be too close to call--would diminish once people learned the economic consequences of breaking up the nation’s second-largest city.

If the municipal divorce took place, Riordan said, Valley residents would lose their share of Los Angeles International Airport, the Department of Water and Power, the city’s port and its sewage treatment plant, among other assets. He also said he was heartened by the poll’s other main results, which showed strong faith in Los Angeles’ economy and leadership.

“The issue hasn’t been debated enough yet for people to see the downside of secession,” Riordan said, adding that the breakup could come at “a tremendous cost” and that “we’re better off spending our energies trying to make the city better than trying to break the city apart.”

Several city and county elected leaders said the findings hardly came as a shock. They argued that residents in the Valley, and throughout Los Angeles, have been unhappy for years with the government services the city provides--especially when compared with what neighboring cities offer.

“I’m not surprised,” said County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “There are two things driving this, a desire by communities to have more of a say at the local level, and second, a frustration in many communities about delivery of local services. They look around at smaller cities like Calabasas and San Fernando and see them taking care of everything, from tree trimming to police protection, and say, ‘Why can’t we do that?’ ”

Councilwoman Laura Chick, a Tarzana resident, said the survey results make her want to address the frustration of residents rather than surrender to the idea of secession.

“Knowing more and more people support or are looking at secession to me makes me want to deliver solutions to the problems even faster,” Chick said.

Councilman Mike Feuer, whose district extends from West Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, said the survey results are not surprising, but he cautioned that they may change dramatically once a study is done on the potential cost to taxpayers of Valley cityhood.

“As I have long thought, there is a great deal of distance from City Hall and a clear desire to improve the quality and quantity of city services,” Feuer said.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said she had not expected the level of support to be so high. One of several council members previously unsure of whether they would vote to help pay for a study of secession, Goldberg said she may now do so.

“It’s a little higher than I thought it would be in the Valley,” she said of the support. “I thought it would be over half, but I didn’t think it would be 60%. That’s very high.”

Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who supports a secession study for his Harbor district, which is also pondering a break from Los Angeles, said the results were very encouraging.

“Wow,” he said of the response. “For those who put forth that secession is not on the minds of many across the city of Los Angeles, I find that argument now not to be valid.”

The Times poll surveyed 1,221 city residents March 20-27, including 854 registered voters. The margin of sampling error was 3 percentage points.

Overall, 60% of Valley voters polled said they support forming their own city, while 30% oppose secession and 10% are undecided. Those numbers represent a significant increase from a Times poll three years ago, which found 50% of Valley voters favored the breakup.

In the rest of the city, voters were sharply divided on secession, with 43% of those polled opposing the split and 39% supporting it. Westside and Central City voters were evenly split on the issue, while in South Los Angeles, 45% of voters polled opposed secession and 36% were in favor.

Citywide, 47% of voters polled supported secession, 39% opposed it and 14% were undecided.

Secession would require a majority vote from the Valley, as well as from the city as a whole, making citywide support crucial. Although the poll showed less than half of voters citywide support a breakup, factoring in the margin of error suggests an election would be too close to call. In addition, Valley residents have historically voted in greater numbers than the rest of the city.

Valley residents both east and west of the San Diego Freeway supported secession in strong numbers, and gave largely similar reasons for doing so. In the West Valley, 63% of voters supported the breakup, compared with 58% in the East Valley.

When asked their reasons for supporting a breakup, most east and west Valley respondents cited the same one: a desire for smaller government, 34% in the east compared with 32% in the west.

When asked whether their section of Los Angeles receives enough attention from city government, however, East Valley respondents reacted more strongly, with 51% saying they felt shortchanged compared with 40% in the West Valley.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), who previously dismissed claims that Valley secession did not enjoy support among Latinos, said the poll findings prove the issue crosses racial lines.

“This reaffirms what many of us believed, which is that this issue has broad support and crosses racial grounds,” said Villaraigosa, a possible mayoral candidate. “This is resonating with Valley residents more than some people in other parts of Los Angeles might have believed.

“Although I don’t support secession, the wrong thing to do would be to sweep this under the rug and say there’s no problem here,” he added. “We need to listen to people in the Valley and hopefully bring this city to a place where everyone can be happy with it again.”

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REACTION TO POLL: The results of a Times poll on Valley secession surprised leaders of the movement.B1