VALLEY ROUNDUP : Valleywide : Secession Panel Bids for New Name

Secession: Is it slander?

Responding to concerns by secession advocates that the word “secession” carries deep negative connotations, the City Council’s new committee on secession agreed Thursday to change its name to “Ad Hoc Committee on Special Reorganization.”

Special reorganization is the legalistic term in California law for breaking off one section of a city to form a new municipality, as activists in the San Fernando Valley and Harbor area are seeking to do in Los Angeles.

“The word ‘secession’ leads to the use of the word ‘secessionists,’ ” said Andrew Mardesich of Harbor Study Foundation, one of two groups looking to separate San Pedro and Wilmington from Los Angeles. “Secessionists implies extremism, and we are not extremists.”

Jeff Brain, president of Valley VOTE, the group leading the push for an examination of Valley secession, distanced himself from Mardesich’s remarks, saying he did not consider secessionists to be extremists. But he too believes the term secession has been sullied, and lobbied the committee to opt for the legal term--even if no one uses it.

“I think [secession] is used to put a negative light on citizens who want to explore their right to create a city,” Brain said.

“That may be the word people say around the dinner table, but it is not in any legal documents.”

Although he signed off on it, along with council members Cindy Miscikowski and Rudy Svorinich, Councilman Joel Wachs chided Brain for his request.

“People around the Valley ask me, ‘Joel, what do you think about secession,’ ” said Wachs, who lives in Studio City. “They don’t ask me what I think about special reorganization.”

Councilman Nick Pacheco cast the sole no vote.

Councilman Nate Holden, the other member of the five-member panel and a staunch opponent of secession, was absent but had earlier expressed a strong opposition to the name change.

The name change is still subject to full council approval.