Petitions Qualify Valley Secession for Official Study

Enough San Fernando Valley voters have signed petitions to force a study of secession from Los Angeles, county officials said Monday, setting up what is sure to be a highly complex and politicized debate on the consequences of breaking up the city.

More than 132,000 of the 202,000 signatures submitted by the secession group Valley VOTE were valid, according to the county registrar-recorder’s office, requiring officials to conduct the unprecedented analysis. It is the first step in the arcane process of municipal divorce, which has not occurred in California since Montebello detached from Monterey Park in 1920--and the last step before the breakup reaches the ballot.

Leaders of the secession movement rejoiced after the announcement, saying their campaign to forge the nation’s sixth-largest city from the Valley’s prototypical middle-class suburbs had tangible public support and could no longer be taken lightly.

“To get enough signatures on our first try is just incredible,” John Isen, a board member of Valley Vote, said during a champagne celebration at Galpin Ford in North Hills. “I don’t see how they can’t take us seriously now.”

Valley VOTE, which had previously advocated only a study of secession, will now campaign to place the issue before voters, said Richard Close, the group’s chairman.

“I was involved in the creation of Proposition 13, and this is just as big for me,” said Close, a longtime Sherman Oaks homeowner activist. “This is like that, an idea that was kind of cuckoo but then went mainstream. Politicians didn’t want anything to do with Howard Jarvis. But once people signed the petitions, every politician wanted to be photographed with him.”

The fate of the breakup movement now rests in the hands of the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, a nine-member panel that oversees the redrawing of municipal boundaries. LAFCO must now find money to conduct a detailed analysis--the largest of its kind in history--tallying and dividing Los Angeles’ assets and liabilities.

Among the politically explosive issues to be examined are whether the Valley has a right to share ownership of the Department of Water and Power and, if not, whether the nation’s largest publicly owned utility can charge Valley residents a higher rate. Another controversial issue is whether a split can be done in compliance with a state law that requires municipal alimony payments to one side or the other to ensure breakups are “revenue neutral.”

After conducting the study, LAFCO members--who include City Councilman Hal Bernson and Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--will decide whether the breakup can take place without hurting either the Valley or the rest of the city economically. If so, they will place secession on the ballot for a citywide vote.

The study is expected to take as long as two years, so Valley secession is not likely to go before voters until 2002 at the earliest. It requires a majority vote of the rest of Los Angeles as well as the Valley.

“The dynamic has changed as of this morning,” said Yaroslavsky, who chairs the subcommittee that will direct the study. “All of us who are a part of this process have to step back and make this process work. It would be folly for any of us--the city, the county, the state or LAFCO--to do things that would surreptitiously block this.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, who has repeatedly voiced opposition to even studying a city breakup, said in a terse statement Monday that he will continue to speak out against secession. He declined to elaborate.

“I continue to be opposed to secession,” Riordan said. “I believe secession will ensure nothing but another big bureaucracy, and it’s in the best interest of the city for all its parts to stay together.”

However, mayoral aides said Riordan has not yet taken a position on what is expected to be the next political battle in the secession process--whether the city should help pay for the study, which is expected to cost several million dollars. Riordan will wait to receive a funding request before taking a position, but he would rather not have the city pay for the study, said Kelly Martin, the mayor’s chief of staff.

“The mayor would prefer to use the money to deliver city services, rather than spending millions of dollars on breaking up the city,” Martin said.

Although no formal proposal for funding has been submitted, Valley VOTE leaders have for months been advocating that city, county, state and federal governments share the cost, arguing it would present an unconstitutional hurdle to the ballot if Valley VOTE were asked to pay the expenses. With strong opposition among many city and county leaders to funding any part of a secession study, many observers expect the issue to wind up in court.

Even those cool to Valley secession acknowledged Monday that it had moved a step closer.

“It’s obvious that it’s more likely it will become a reality,” Burke said.

She said the city and state should pay for the study, a frequent refrain around the county’s Hall of Administration, where supervisors want to see those entities open their wallets first.

“I don’t see where the city has any choice but to be cooperative,” Burke said.

Another issue likely to lead to legal squabbles is whether Los Angeles bureaucrats must comply with what are expected to be voluminous requests for data. Some of the data LAFCO may request from the city does not exist or is not up to date, said Ron Deaton, the city’s chief legislative analyst.

“They need the current value of city facilities but we don’t do appraisals every year so that would not be readily available,” Deaton said. “Someone would have to hire appraisers.”

To collect the signatures, Valley VOTE employed a horde of paid petitioners, who canvassed at supermarkets and shopping malls throughout the sprawling area for months last year.

It did so with financial assistance from two of the Valley’s most prominent political power brokers, car dealer and city Police Commissioner Bert Boeckmann and attorney David Fleming, a fire commissioner. Both men had contributed about $15,000, according to the secession group.

Many Valley leaders have been supportive of a secession study, saying their constituents had a right to determine if Valley independence would benefit them.

“The study is really important,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents parts of the southeast Valley and lives in Studio City. “I signed the petition because I thought it was important to have the facts.”

But many other city politicians, especially those from outside the Valley, have expressed strong concerns about the breakup, fearing it could hurt the remainder of the city.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, who represents much of the central city, said one of the main issues fueling the call for secession--that the Valley is being deprived its fair share of public services--has no basis in fact.

“I’m disappointed that it has come to this, that they want to pick up their marbles and run,” Walters said. “Their cause is not a just one.”

State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), one of the most vocal secession opponents, said in a recent interview that he will oppose all efforts to seek state funding for the study.

“The city is what it is because of its diversity and totality,” Polanco said. “It’s a world-class city, and for us to break it up would be a horrible thing.”

Valley secession has generated stiff opposition from some Latino groups, who fear it could be an attempt by residents in the relatively whiter Valley to undo some of the political gains made by Latinos in Los Angeles.

“Political representation for Latinos in the San Fernando Valley would be worse if we secede than if we stay a part of Los Angeles. That is just a fact,” said Xavier Flores of the Mexican American Political Assn.’s Valley chapter. “You don’t need a huge study to know that you have more clout when you are 40% of the total population compared to 30%.”

But other Los Angeles Latino leaders say the secession issue is about a lack of faith in government, not Balkanization.

“It’s too simple to say this is racial, that this is about certain communities wanting to secede from other communities,” said Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) in a recent interview. “What this shows is that the support is broader than people thought. The motivations are more complex than that.”

To counter claims that support for studying secession did not exist outside wealthier, whiter, parts of the Valley, leaders of Valley VOTE released figures earlier this month that showed the group’s petition drive had collected high numbers of signatures everywhere. In fact, according to the figures, the largely Latino northeast Valley supported secession more strongly than any other area.

The figures compared the number of signatures collected in each area to the number of people registered to vote there, and drew a direct percentage. For example, Valley VOTE claimed 54% of Pacoima voters had supported the petition because it collected 8,239 signatures in the area, which has 15,246 registered voters.

For decades, some Valley residents have sought to break away from Los Angeles, arguing that they were subsidizing less wealthy portions of the city, receiving an inferior share of public services and being ignored by City Hall, among other things.

In the 1970s, a Valley group titled Committee Investigating Independent City/County, or CIVICC, launched a campaign to divorce Los Angeles. But its efforts met a sudden end when then-Mayor Tom Bradley and other city leaders successfully lobbied the Legislature to grant the City Council veto power over secessions.

Although CIVICC fizzled, many of its leaders went on to assume key positions in state and local government. Earlier this decade, one of them, former Assemblywoman Paula Boland, revived the secession issue with a bill to revoke the veto power.

Although Boland failed, Assembly members Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) and Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) later succeeded, passing legislation to allow the public to vote on secessions if 25% of an area’s registered voters first support studying the issue.

“I just can’t tell you what it means to me. It’s a 20-year dream come true,” Boland said. “People in the Valley have always been at the whim of the downtown establishment, who ran the city however they wanted and just treated us as a cash cow. Those days are coming to an end.”

* BACKING CHARTER REFORM: Three leaders of Valley secession movement endorse charter reform ballot measure. B2