Be Careful What You Ask For

The secessionist group Valley VOTE is making far too much of the City Council’s restrictions on how the Local Agency Formation Commission can spend the city’s $265,000 contribution to secession studies for the San Fernando Valley and the Harbor area.

The council Tuesday limited city funding to reviewing and analyzing data on whether the breakup of Los Angeles would financially harm the new or old cities. It prohibited LAFCO from using city funds to develop specific plans for breaking up the city.

So what’s the big deal?

Valley VOTE accuses the council of imposing these restrictions as a ruse to sue LAFCO down the road by claiming the conditions weren’t followed, thus blocking or delaying secession.

Yes, lawsuits are likely down the road. As even Valley VOTE leaders point out when it suits them, the simultaneous detachment and incorporation of a region the size of the Valley have never before been attempted. As might be expected in anything so complicated, the parties disagree on how to interpret the state law that governs--loosely--what LAFCO can and can’t do.

In this case, the city attorney’s office maintains that LAFCO can’t use city funds to even assist secession groups in developing cityhood plans--an opinion that went further than the City Council’s restrictions. The county counsel’s office disagrees. Valley VOTE intends to ask attorneys for the state Legislature to weigh in.

LAFCO, in the meantime, agreed Wednesday to accept the funds, along with the restrictions. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t 100% want to do,” said LAFCO Chairman Thomas E. Jackson. The same can be said of the City Council’s decision to contribute any money to this costly folly. Los Angeles already has invested in a lengthy process to rebuild government through charter reform. In the midst of civic reconciliation, Valley VOTE chose to file for divorce.

Always ready to play the aggrieved party, Valley VOTE wanted LAFCO to reject the council’s offer and instead ask for more money from the state or county or raise private funds. But, as usual, it never offered to contribute anything itself, although it initiated this expensive and divisive study. Its leaders claimed during their petition drive that all they wanted was the facts so that secession could be studied. They shouldn’t complain when the city agrees to pay for the facts and only the facts.