Vote on Valley Secession May Not Happen Until 2004

After an early rush of momentum, efforts to split the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro and Wilmington from Los Angeles are slowing down, and secessionists fear that the chances of a vote before 2004 are increasingly looking slim.

The delays represent a major setback for the activists in both areas looking to leave Los Angeles. They had hoped to place secession on the ballot next year or in 2002 at the latest.

The Local Agency Formation Commission, the nine-member panel overseeing a study on both secession bids, has decided not to begin work until it hires a consultant. It expects to take at least five months to do so.

The panel estimates that once underway, the study could take as long as four years--twice the previous prediction--according to the job description distributed to potential consultants. That could push an election back to 2004 or possibly later--without factoring in the likelihood of a lawsuit.

Even if the study takes only 25 months, as the commission’s schedule now stands, the results would probably come too late to place secession on the 2002 ballot, as had been hoped. That would push the vote back to 2004 because, according to the state law governing secession attempts, breakup elections can occur only in even-numbered years.

Leaders of Valley VOTE, the main group behind the Valley secession campaign, are growing frustrated with what they see as a bureaucracy dragging its feet.

“We’re getting concerned about this process,” said Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain. “At this rate, it’s going to take them longer to hire a consultant than it took us to collect a quarter-million signatures” to trigger the study and possible vote on what would be the largest municipal divorce in U.S. history.

Leaders of Harbor VOTE, one of two groups campaigning to secede in San Pedro and Wilmington, also believe the study is needlessly bogging down.

“I don’t know why it’s taking so long,” said Bill Silverthorn, Harbor VOTE’s executive director. “Does it take this long just to get started? It’s very frustrating.”

Commission officials say they are simply moving carefully, making sure the momentous issues surrounding the possible fragmentation of the nation’s second-largest city receive proper scrutiny.

Because the commission did not obtain money to conduct a Valley secession study until this summer--and it took until the fall for San Pedro and Wilmington--it had to postpone the work of picking an expert, said Larry Calemine, the panel’s executive director. Because it does not want to further slow the process and rebid for a consultant if the work takes longer than scheduled, it is drafting the contract for up to four years.

But the commission is still hoping to complete the study sooner, he said.

“This is a humongous thing,” Calemine said. “We hope to get it done within two years. But delays do occur. There could be lawsuits, there could be environmental issues. We have to protect ourselves, and make sure the [consultant’s] contract is done the right way. We have to give it time.”

Everyone seems to agree on one point: The hiring of a secession consultant could be one of the most important decisions the panel makes.

The consultant will shape the secession study, a comprehensive financial analysis of the consequences of deconstructing Los Angeles that the panel will use to determine whether either secession attempt should be put to a public vote. Secession requires a majority vote of both the areas seceding and the whole city.

Whether the panel is proceeding as it should is hardly a matter of general agreement among its members. Instead, the process is turning into a showcase for the different political wills at work on the panel, a locally appointed arm of the Legislature with sweeping power over land annexations and the creation of cities.

Internal Conflicts

Commission members County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and City Councilman Hal Bernson, who both favor a prompt secession study, often have widely conflicting opinions about how it is being handled.

Yaroslavsky is one of the most powerful politicians in Los Angeles, but he has become nearly powerless on the commission, marginalized by a majority loyal to Calemine and led by Bernson and Chairman Thomas Jackson, a Huntington Park councilman.

Yaroslavsky has lost numerous panel votes in recent months on such issues as increased disclosure of lobbying activities and maintaining a secession subcommittee he chaired. He asserts that Calemine, Bernson, Jackson and others want to continue running the panel the way they have for years, even though they are under the spotlight as never before.

He has openly questioned Calemine’s management style, and pressed for more board control and public scrutiny of the panel’s actions. One of the most controversial decisions made by Calemine, without board approval, was his recent hiring of Sandor L. Winger as his top assistant--a new position created to help move along the secession study.

Winger, who is married to a top Bernson aide and is a longtime personal friend of Bernson and Calemine, has no prior experience with the panel. The job pays $60,000 a year.

“This gets at the way this agency operates,” Yaroslavsky said. “It has been run this way a long time, because no one pays attention. Outside the public eye, they run this thing like a mom and pop store, and they can’t do that anymore. They’re playing in the big leagues now, with big money and big issues.”

Bernson did not respond to requests for comment.

Azusa Mayor Christina Cruz-Madrid, who serves as an alternate, was the first to publicly question how Winger could have been hired without discussion or a candidate search. After a closed session last week in which the panel debated how Winger was hired, and whether he should be fired, he was kept on.

“I’m not comfortable with the way this was done,” said Cruz-Madrid, who added that she was not aware that Calemine, Bernson and Winger were friends until told by a reporter. “This is a public agency. We are spending taxpayer money and we have to be able to withstand scrutiny.”

Director Defends Hiring Decision

Calemine said he hired Winger, who has worked as a consultant to Bernson and others and serves as chairman of a Van Nuys Airport advisory committee, because he has known him personally for many years and “knew how he handled things.” Winger, Bernson and Calemine were all involved in the Committee Investigating Valley Independent City/County, an organization that campaigned unsuccessfully for Valley secession two decades ago.

“I did not need someone from a planning department,” Calemine said. “I needed somebody who had some experience working with governmental agencies, somebody who knew how to bring people to the table and get things done.

“If anyone knows Sandy, they know he is a professional. Whether he is friends with Hal Bernson, or Zev Yaroslavsky, or anyone else on the board, I don’t really know how that matters.”

For his part, Winger said he is qualified for the post.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I have the particular background suited for this job.”

However, when The Times asked Calemine for a copy of Winger’s resume, Winger intervened, and Calemine refused to provide it.

Calemine served side by side as an alternate commission board member with many of the current panelists, including Bernson and Jackson, before they appointed him in 1995 to the $75,000 a year job of executive director. He was initially disqualified from the job in 1993 due to a conflict of interest because he was still serving on the board when he was being considered.

Though Yaroslavsky has a distaste for the way the commission continues to conduct business, he said it is “a little premature” to conclude that the secession study will be a victim of delays.

Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close, an attorney who also serves as an alternate member, agreed, but said there is reason for concern.

“Selecting the consultant is taking longer than it should, longer than I had hoped,” Close said. “I hope it’s not an indication of things to come. It’s reasonable to assume that the city will stall, and [the panel] will need to push the city. Someone may also have to push [the panel] to make sure this is not studied ad nauseam.”