Public Misses Meeting

The first public hearing on one of the most consequential issues facing Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley’s potential secession from the city, went off without a hitch Wednesday with only one trifling exception: Not a single person from the public showed up.

Present were a handful of city officials, a private consultant, a couple of reporters and several leaders of breakaway movements in the Valley and San Pedro--in short, the same faces present at all secession meetings.

So members of the Local Agency Formation Commission, the panel presiding over the split, spoke before a vacant chamber at the Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles.

“Not even the usual suspects,” Larry Calemine, the panel’s executive director, quipped afterward to County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman.

Cynicism aside, the absence of even gadfly representation at the weekday hearing, held at 9 a.m., raises questions about what LAFCO is doing to involve the public in an obscure political process that could eventually lead to a public vote on the dissolution of Los Angeles.

Aware of the challenge before them, LAFCO’s nine appointed members have discussed holding public hearings around the city, including in the Valley and the San Pedro-Wilmington area, where enough registered voters have now signed petitions to trigger unprecedented studies on breaking away from the city. In the Valley alone, more than 130,000 voters signed the petitions.

To spread the word about the issue, LAFCO has entertained launching a public relations campaign and plans to hold meetings at times people can attend, nights and weekends.

Challenge May Be Greater Than Expected

The turnout for Wednesday’s hearing, which was required under state law within 90 days of Valley activists filing papers to secede, suggests the PR challenge may be greater than LAFCO expected.

“It’s a good feeling to be here at the first public hearing on this issue,” said Jeff Brain, president of Valley VOTE, the main group pushing for a study and possible vote on the split. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

Two speakers later and the meeting was over, continued to Aug. 25.

Before wrapping up his remarks, however, Charles Brink, who like the others that preceded him, was a secession proponent and LAFCO regular, stated the obvious.

“These meetings need to be held at a different time,” Brink said. “For the average citizen, three hours [in midday] is not possible.”

In other LAFCO matters, the panel voted Wednesday not to pursue a suggestion by the city Ethics Commission that it require groups lobbying for or against secession to disclose their donors and financial war chests.

LAFCO staff members argued in a report that the panel did not have the power to enact such regulations because it is an arm of the state, and added that such decisions could be made only by the state Legislature. That opinion contradicted the view of the Ethics Commission, which argued that LAFCO did have the authority to pursue what it saw as a legal loophole.

Most political campaigns that wind up in a public vote are required under state law to disclose their fund-raising and spending to the public. But secession is not, and Valley VOTE has chosen to release only a few details about its donors, saying it fears a backlash by city officials.

Pellman, who serves as LAFCO’s legal advisor, said the panel had the power to enact regulations on itself, but not on those that go before it.

“You can police yourself, but you can’t force third parties,” Pellman said.

Hoping to close the loophole, representatives of the Ethics Commission are already pursuing changes to campaign finance laws at the state level.

Though LAFCO voted not to act on the Ethics Commission recommendation, it agreed to consider an ordinance at its next meeting forcing panelists to disclose communications with contractors seeking business with the panel.

Public Information About Study Urged

Supervisor and LAFCO member Zev Yaroslavsky proposed the disclosure, saying he wanted the public to know as much as possible about LAFCO’s upcoming selection of consultants to conduct a study of secession that is expected to cost taxpayers $2.3 million.

“This is not about whether Jeff Brain calls me and says, ‘I want secession,’ or Dick Riordan calls me and says, ‘I don’t,’ ” Yaroslavsky said, clarifying that he is not targeting lobbyists. “This is about the ABC company that has a contract pending before us.”