Threats, Accusations Mark Secession Debate

Supporters and opponents of San Fernando Valley secession hurled threats and accusations Tuesday night at a forum that underscored the emotion driving the campaign to split Los Angeles.

Lisa Gritzner, chief of staff to City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, touched off the angry back-and-forth by suggesting that the city might sue to keep a referendum on Valley secession off the ballot.

“There are very serious concerns over water, electricity and other things,” she told several dozen Valley residents and business owners. “You can disagree with me, and you can think that the city’s being obstructionist, but the city will not--will not--allow those things to go unlitigated.”

The crowd groaned.

“Litigated?” asked J. Richard Leyner, the host of the forum and a board member of the Valley VOTE secession group. “You don’t mean litigated, do you? Litigation is a fight word.”

“I mean litigated,” Gritzner said.

“Oh, OK, so they’re going to obstruct this,” Leyner said in a tone of exasperation.

Another Valley VOTE board member, William F. Powers of Chatsworth, was more blunt.

“I think we just got word that the city of Los Angeles, with their superior financial power, is going to extort us through litigation, and I think that’s a terrible shame,” he said.

The crowd applauded.

“I think it’s just reality,” said Gritzner, whose boss, Miscikowski, is a secession opponent and has overseen the council’s work on the issue.

Gritzner also said a transition to Valley cityhood would be “messy” and that Los Angeles would not “baby-sit the new city as it gets itself up to speed.” Leyner responded: “The only way it won’t work is if the city doesn’t cooperate.”

The exchange came at a forum sponsored by the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, which is headed by Leyner.

A secession proposal could be on the ballot in November 2002. A study by the county agency reviewing the plan has found that a Valley city could sustain itself with its own tax revenue, but would have to pay $68 million in “alimony” each year to compensate the remaining part of Los Angeles for its loss.

Valley VOTE president Jeff Brain, who was on the debate panel with Gritzner, compared the City Council aide to a despot.

“If we heard of a dictator or a government saying they were going to threaten you with water or power or litigation, we would all be outraged,” he said. “And yet we have it happening right here.”

Powers, a Chatsworth lawyer also on the debate panel, complained that police and fire stations were better staffed “on the other side of the hill.”

“We have trees that aren’t trimmed and potholes that are tearing up our tires,” he said.

“You look over on the other side of the hill, and you see a lot of cultural things. They’re building this mammoth, wonderful Disney thing, and they’re doing this wonderful cathedral, and you know what? We don’t have a sports facility on this side of the hill. We have nothing cultural on this side of the hill. . . .

“Why is it that all the money is going over there and we’re getting squat?”

Gritzner responded that there “were blueprints to put an arts park in the Sepulveda basin, and that was fought.”

In a lighter moment, Leyner pondered the possibilities of naming the new city. With “San Fernando” already taken, he offered three suggestions: “West Bel-Air,” “North Beverly Hills” and “Camelot.”