Hollywood Group Says It Has Backing for Secession Bid

Organizers of a campaign to create an independent city of Hollywood say they have collected enough voter signatures to initiate a government study of their plan to break away from Los Angeles.

Incorporation movement leaders said Friday that they have begun verifying the signatures and plan to turn over petitions bearing about 32,000 names to the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission in about two weeks.

The Hollywood VOTE group needs the valid signatures of 19,600 registered voters living within the 4-square-mile boundaries of the proposed city.

“The fact that so many people have signed shows that basically everyone supports the idea of independence,” said Gene La Pietra, founder of Hollywood VOTE. “They want to know what the city owns, what the assets of this town are.”

Hollywood’s proposed boundaries would be West Hollywood and Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the west; 3rd Street, Beverly Boulevard and Clinton Street on the south; Hoover Street, Myra Avenue and Griffith Park on the east; and Wrightwood Drive, the Hollywood Freeway and the Los Angeles River on the north.

The formation commission study will determine whether Hollywood’s secession would be “revenue-neutral” to Los Angeles and Hollywood. If the study shows that neither area would be financially hurt by separation, it will be put to a citywide vote.

Hollywood could join the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro areas in a planned breakaway ballot measure as early as the November 2002 election. The Valley and San Pedro are undergoing the complex financial review.

If all three secession movements were successful, the population of Los Angeles would shrink by nearly half. With 3.6 million residents, Los Angeles is larger than 25 states.

Los Angeles city officials have criticized the breakaway efforts--which started in the Valley and spread to the harbor area before Hollywood’s campaign began Feb. 14. Hollywood’s honorary mayor, Johnny Grant, was the first person to sign a petition.

Hollywood leaders have had six months by law to collect the signatures. The deadline to turn the petitions over to the county is Aug. 14, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

La Pietra, the owner of the Circus and Arena nightclubs in Hollywood, said his group has not decided when the petitions will be handed over. But he predicted that the move will attract international attention because large numbers of reporters will be in town for the convention.

“The world thinks we’re already a city,” La Pietra said. “They don’t know we were hijacked by L.A. way back for water rights.”

If cityhood is successful, Hollywood intends to properly promote itself globally, La Pietra said.

“The first thing we’re going to do is start a visitors bureau,” he said. “Right now, L.A. won’t let us have one.”