Show Us the Money Trail

Backers of the San Fernando Valley secession movement are talking out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to who’s bankrolling the push for divorce.

They say they may release the names of at least some contributors--after first polling donors to see who wouldn’t mind going public. At the same time, they’re sending out letters soliciting more donations while dangling the promise of secrecy. “The names of contributors are not required to be reported and will be kept confidential upon request,” the letter says.

Unfortunately, as their letter states, the law designed to prod campaign consciences apparently does not apply to the secession campaign. The authors of the state’s Political Reform Act simply never anticipated a movement like Valley secession.

Yet clearly the secession drive is a political campaign with a political goal. And clearly a significant amount of money is being raised. Now that its hired signature-gatherers have collected enough names to force a study of municipal divorce, Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, or VOTE, and a sister organization, the Civic Foundation, are raising more money to pay the secessionists’ share of the required study, defend possible lawsuits and promote what kind of city they believe the Valley should be. Yet so far, Valley VOTE has released the names of only a handful of its biggest donors, and then only reluctantly.

Secessionists’ rationale for secrecy is that some secession backers are active in city affairs, work for the city or sit on city commissions and fear reprisals. So much for the courage of conviction. But what about the repercussions of launching in secret a supposed drive for greater accountability?

Backers of secession need to put their mouths where their money is. They say they want the Valley to split from the rest of Los Angeles so that the new city’s government will be more open, accountable and responsive to the people. Yet they refuse to say who is bankrolling the drive to create this new accountable and responsive city. Surely they have to recognize the contradiction here.