County to Fund Secession Study

The Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay for part of the study required before voters can consider allowing the San Fernando Valley to secede from Los Angeles.

The unanimous agreement to pay $225,000 toward the cost of the report came after the state pledged to pay the lion’s share of the study’s estimated $2.3-million cost.

“This is a step forward in providing the right information and the right to participate in the democratic process,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who introduced the motion with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

If the study determines that Valley secession will not cost the taxpayers, the issue goes to a citywide ballot, possibly as early as 2002, completing a process launched earlier this year when secession advocates turned in petitions signed by more than 200,000 Valley voters seeking the study.

For six months, the supervisors delayed considering the study’s funding, not wanting to contribute any money before the state paid its share. The state budget includes $1.8 million for the study.

The county’s payment is contingent on the city of Los Angeles also paying $225,000. City Councilman Joel Wachs said Tuesday that he will seek to have the city funding issue taken up July 29 at the first meeting of the council’s new Ad Hoc Committee on Secession.

“I think the city is duty-bound now to do the same thing as the county did,” Wachs said.

Richard Close, chairman of Valley VOTE, said he was heartened by the Board of Supervisors’ unanimous vote because it included vocal secession opponents. “What it signifies is that people who are opposed to Valley cityhood believe there should be a full and comprehensive study,” he said.

Before approving their share of the study’s costs, the supervisors stressed that other groups seeking to secede from Los Angeles should also get funding.

Supervisor Don Knabe stressed that a Harbor-area secession movement in his district should also have access to public funds for its study. He called for “a sense of fairness . . . at the time when they move forward.”

County officials said the price tabs of other secession studies should be significantly lower after the Valley study. Many of the larger issues that will be examined in the Valley study, such as making an inventory of city assets, would be used in other secession studies.

Yaroslavsky cautioned that consultants to the Local Agency Formation Commission, the agency that will oversee the study, need not spend all of the $2.3 million unless it is necessary. “Make sure they don’t go hog wild just because the funding’s there,” he said.

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Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this story.