Panel Expects Bumpy Road for Secession

A panel of experts on San Fernando Valley secession agreed Tuesday the road to municipal divorce will be long and contentious before a vote can take place.

Within the next few weeks, a nine-member commission will decide how it will tackle the monumental task of divvying up the city’s assets in a way that would allow both members of the broken partnership to survive new and separate lives.

The slow and painful process that will determine whether voters get a say in the matter was outlined at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

More than 80 people heard panelists, including Larry Calemine, head of the Local Agency Formation Commission, which will oversee the process, and other experts on separation issues. While pro-secessionists, such as Jeff Brain from Valley VOTE, were in the audience, the discussion, moderated by former City Councilwoman Joy Picus, was limited to the secession process and scope of studies about to begin.

The study process began last week after Valley VOTE collected signatures of 133,000 qualified registered voters, or one-fourth of all voters in the Valley.

“Unfortunately, now it’s my problem,” said Calemine, describing the commission’s role in overseeing a secession movement that has not been done successfully in more than 100 years. “I don’t know how we’re going to handle this with a staff of 4 1/2 people.”

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So many questions need to be resolved that the debate could be tied up in the courts and in public hearings for years, said Calemine, whose organization is charged with determining whether the separation is feasible. He characterized the upcoming battle as “the legal profession’s fantasy and LAFCO’s nightmare.”

When all of the studies are completed, nine LAFCO members will decide whether to place the issue on the ballot. If commissioners disapprove, Calemine said, “that’s the end of the ballgame.” There is no appeal, and any new secession move would have to wait a year before beginning the petition drive all over.

If LAFCO agrees to put the issue before voters, approval is required by both a majority in the Valley and in Los Angeles as a whole, Calemine said.

Economist Beverly Burr outlined the complexities of dividing the city’s assets, citing problems such as the lack of available lists of equipment and facilities of local agencies. She also said the huge debt accumulated by the city to supply power and water requires the retention of all customers. Burr estimates preliminary studies could cost $1.8 million to $2.6 million.

Thomas C. Hokinson, an assistant city attorney, said Los Angeles has an obligation to continue suppling water to the Valley, even though water rights would be retained by Los Angeles under a series of California Supreme Court decisions.

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Helene Smooker, an attorney for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, described the interaction of agencies that work to meet regional issues, such as transportation, airports and homeless services. She also recounted the history of centralization and decentralization trends in the region.

James Allen, geography professor at Cal State University, Northridge, presented maps based on census data illustrating the differences between the Valley and the Los Angeles Basin. The Valley has less poverty and its households are less crowded than vast older areas of downtown.