LAFCO Looks Toward a Fall 2002 Breakup Vote

The commission drafting plans for San Fernando Valley secession set a schedule Wednesday for finishing its work in time to get the proposal on the November 2002 ballot, but left out the step that poses the biggest threat to a referendum: a court fight.

City Hall lawyers already have sketched the outlines of a potential legal assault on the move to break apart Los Angeles. They allege that the commission’s initial plan for dividing the police force, Fire Department and every other city agency is riddled with illegal and unconstitutional proposals.

At the same time, Valley separatists have hired their own legal team to beat back any court challenge and clear the way for a vote. They dismiss the issues raised by city lawyers as a last-ditch attempt to break the momentum of a Valley cityhood campaign that has come closer to a vote than many critics had expected.

But the unanswered legal questions are among the most important posed by secession.

Can Los Angeles, for instance, be forced against its will to provide water and power to homes and businesses in a newly independent Valley city? If so, would there be any limit to rate hikes Los Angeles could impose on Valley customers?

The Local Agency Formation Commission, which is weighing whether to put secession on the ballot, hopes Los Angeles and the Valley will settle their terms of separation out of court. It expects City Hall and the Valley VOTE secession group to hold settlement talks and conclude them by the end of October.

But several city officials Wednesday voiced reluctance to bargain.

“There are a lot of questions that should be resolved, and we need the answers to those questions before you can negotiate,” said Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton, the City Council’s top advisor.

On Wednesday, LAFCO adopted a packed schedule to complete all the reports and hearings that must precede a referendum. LAFCO Executive Officer Larry J. Calemine, a former Valley secession advocate, is to release the panel’s final recommendations on Feb. 15. The nine commissioners plan to decide by March 27 whether to put secession before voters.

Hollywood Breakaway Proposal Is Shelved

A proposal for harbor area secession would follow the same schedule, but LAFCO has shelved a plan for Hollywood secession because of a lack of public funds for a fiscal study. It could revive the Hollywood proposal if private money is raised for the study.

Valley secession advocates are eager to get the proposal on the November 2002 ballot, because the next opportunity for a referendum--by state law--would be March 2004.

Some secession advocates had urged LAFCO to hold the election of the Valley city’s first mayor and council on the same day as the referendum, and they won that battle Wednesday. The commission’s counsel ruled that state law requires the election to be held on the same day. The board voted to hire a consultant, PDQ GeoDemographics, to draw maps for at least 14 council districts for a Valley city.

As LAFCO presses forward, city officials are weighing whether to file a lawsuit to delay or kill the referendum. It’s a decision fraught with political risk for Mayor James K. Hahn, a secession opponent who was elected with strong support in the Valley.

As a mayoral candidate in March, Hahn promised to “work to make sure Los Angeles voters will be able to vote on the proposal in November 2002.” Responding to a Valley VOTE questionnaire, he also pledged to oppose a court challenge by the City Council or any “interest group.”

But the council signed no such pledges, and several members are ardent secession opponents.

Also, Hahn himself has sent mixed signals on the issue. Ten days after he was elected mayor in June, Hahn, then city attorney, released a report that laid out a road map for legal challenges to Valley secession.

“As city attorney, his job was to advise his client, the city, on any potential legal issues,” Hahn spokeswoman Julie Wong said Wednesday. “But that was prior to his inauguration as mayor. As mayor, he supports letting the people vote on this issue. And his focus right now is not on potential litigation, but on solving the problems that are the root cause of the secession movement.”

Still, Hahn’s report remains the City Council’s guide to a potential lawsuit. In the report, Hahn and two staff lawyers questioned the legality of LAFCO’s preliminary plan for extracting the Valley from Los Angeles. Among their chief concerns: the Valley city would have to contract with Los Angeles for water, power, sewer, computer, pension and 911 dispatch systems.

Hahn’s report concluded LAFCO has no legal power to mandate service contracts between Los Angeles and the Valley. Moreover, it said the contract proposals prove Valley cityhood fails to meet the legal standard for municipal independence--fiscal viability. The report compared the contracts to an “umbilical cord tying the two cities together.”

“This support system seems to have been devised as an attempt to mask the inviability of the proposed city,” the report found.

Calemine declined to comment Wednesday.

Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close dismissed the legal concerns as unfounded, saying LAFCO’s final plan would meet all legal requirements. He said he expected no lawsuits to be filed, much less prove successful. “Courts do not hold up elections,” he said.

But Julie Butcher, general manager of the largest union of city employees, Service Employees International Union Local 347, said organized labor might challenge the referendum in court. Under state law, the new Valley city would be required to honor the collective bargaining agreements that bind Los Angeles, but union leaders still fear their members could lose their jobs or contract protections.

“We’re going to work real hard to keep the city together,” Butcher said. “I don’t think any strategy is off the charts.”