Secession Study Oversight Panel Is Proposed

Citing the need for a “fair and even-handed” discussion of the issue, Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski asked the City Council on Tuesday to create a subcommittee to oversee an upcoming study on the San Fernando Valley’s proposed secession from Los Angeles.

Miscikowski’s motion was immediately hailed by Valley VOTE, the group looking to cleave the Valley from the remainder of the city, but it was criticized by Mayor Richard Riordan’s office, which had already devised a plan of its own to shepherd the politically explosive study.

“This is obviously going to conflict with the mayor’s directive,” said Riordan spokeswoman Jessica Copen. “It’s going to cause a lot of confusion.”

Under the proposal submitted by Miscikowski to council President John Ferraro, the committee would serve as a clearinghouse for the expected deluge of data on Los Angeles government that will be needed to analyze the proposed dismantling of the city. It would also serve as the council’s main means of communicating with the Local Agency Formation Commission, the panel that will request the information and conduct the study.

An unprecedented analysis on the economic consequences of deconstructing Los Angeles, the study must arrive at certain findings for Valley secession to be placed on the ballot. Secession would require a majority vote of the Valley, as well as of the city as a whole.

“This secession could change the face of the city most dramatically,” Miscikowski said. “We need to have a process in place to deal with the study and all the issues that come up because of it.”

Secessionists have repeatedly expressed concerns that top Los Angeles bureaucrats and Riordan’s office would try to sink the secession study by making needed information difficult to obtain, or even by manipulating city data.

Those fears were stoked last month when Riordan issued an executive order--only the 10th of his administration--that placed his office, the office of the chief administrative officer, and the chief legislative analyst in charge of reviewing and releasing all city information needed to study secession. The order stated that such a centralized system would allow Riordan’s office and top city officials to coordinate, and possibly amend, the figures before they are released.

Placing the City Council in charge would allow for greater public scrutiny of that process, said Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain.

“We’re glad to see Cindy taking a leadership role on this issue,” Brain said. “We believe the best way to get impartial information from the city is to put the City Council in charge, not some bureaucrat that is not accountable to anyone.”

Miscikowski stressed she was not attempting to one-up the mayor, but simply hoped to create a more inclusive process--one that included the public as well as the City Council. Her proposal would allow the mayor, or a mayor’s representative, to sit on the committee.

“The main purpose would be to create an official point of dialogue, and have it take place out in the open, not behind closed doors,” Miscikowski said. “I think the committee could help shape that [the mayor’s] plan. Clearly, my motion is looking to remove confusion, not create more of it.”

Studying the breakup of the nation’s second-largest city is expected to be a complex, time-consuming task. A county report earlier this year estimated that more than 1,000 properties, several thousand vehicles, nearly 1,000 computers and more than 30,000 public employees would somehow have to be appraised and divided to study secession.

Secessionists are advocating joint agreements between a new Valley city and the remainder of Los Angeles to run the Department of Water and Power, as well as the airport and harbor departments. But if the study eventually winds up including an analysis of dismantling the DWP, as some expect, it could become even more complex.

State law requires that Los Angeles officials cooperate with LAFCO on the secession study, but the law is short on specifics, and city officials have already argued that they should not have to spend public funds to reproduce information that is, in many cases, out of date or nonexistent.

The study was triggered earlier this year after more than one-fourth of the Valley’s registered voters signed petitions to pursue municipal divorce. But the source of funding for the analysis, expected to cost $2.3 million, remains unclear.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) has proposed that the state pay most of the cost. But his proposal to seek the money as part of this year’s state budget is expected to encounter opposition in the state Senate. Hoping to assist Villaraigosa, Miscikowski on Tuesday also introduced a resolution asking her council colleagues to formally support state funding of the study.