Donors Stay Anonymous in Secession Fight

In a throwback to the pre-Watergate era of covert money in politics, San Fernando Valley secessionists have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from anonymous donors, and a new group fighting to keep Los Angeles together says it too will keep donor names secret.

Groups on both sides of secession have been subject to almost no public disclosure of fund-raising, spending or lobbying. For more than two years, ethics watchdogs have unsuccessfully urged the commission reviewing secession to adopt disclosure rules.

The absence of rules has allowed the Valley VOTE secession group not to reveal donations from such sources as VALPAC, a committee of developers, chief executives and other businesspeople.

One VALPAC board member, Larry J. Calemine, is the public official in charge of drafting a secession ballot proposal that balances the needs of both the Valley and the rest of Los Angeles.

Calemine said he played no role in VALPAC’s $6,000 donation. But Bob Stern, a coauthor of California’s 1974 campaign finance disclosure law, said Calemine’s presence on the VALPAC board leaves the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Since 1998, secession groups have raised at least $550,000, most of it from unnamed donors, tax records show.

Now, anti-secession groups are trying to raise millions of their own. One of them, L.A. United, led by Mayor James K. Hahn, has pledged full disclosure of donations and expenses. But another, One Los Angeles, plans to keep its donor list secret.

“We have come across a number of people in the Valley who have said they don’t want to be identified publicly because of their nervousness about being maligned and attacked,” One Los Angeles co-founder Larry Levine said. “There is no legal requirement that we or anybody else in our position disclose the source of our funds, and we intend to follow the law.”

That is precisely the problem, said Miriam Krinsky, president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.

“The public really has a right to know who’s subsidizing these efforts as they’re underway,” she said. “The only way the public is going to have confidence in the process is if it’s done in the light of day.”

Financial disclosure has been the norm in American politics since the 1970s. Candidates and ballot-measure campaigns must disclose nearly every donation and expense--even the names of private investigators they hire to research opponents.

Disclosure rules are also routine for lobbying at thousands of local, state and federal agencies.

The Local Agency Formation Commission, which is weighing whether to put secession before voters, has no such rule.

State disclosure law will apply to secession committees--pro and con--only if secession is put on the ballot, and that could be more than six months away. In March, LAFCO drafted disclosure rules for fund-raising and lobbying. It named a committee to recommend whether to adopt them.

Nine months later, the committee has still not met.

“We’ve been swamped with other things,” said Calemine, LAFCO’s executive officer.

For Calemine, the disclosure of VALPAC’s September 1999 donation to Valley VOTE--which until now has remained secret--could prove awkward.

He is chief arbiter of disputes between Valley VOTE and City Hall over terms of the secession proposal that LAFCO is drafting for the November 2002 ballot. Critics have long charged that Calemine is biased in favor of secession. He denies the charge. Calemine co-founded a Valley secession movement that collapsed in the 1970s, but says he is neutral now.

A commercial property manager by trade, Calemine works for both LAFCO and the Porter Ranch Development Co., the Valley’s largest developer. For 20 years, he has been a board member at VALPAC, the San Fernando Valley Business Political Action Committee. VALPAC raises money for leaders of the state Legislature and other candidates. VALPAC’s 21 members hold private meetings with politicians as prominent as Gov. Gray Davis.

Valley VOTE Makes Appeal to VALPAC

At a July 1999 breakfast in the Encino office of VALPAC member George Moss, a developer, the committee heard a pitch from Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain: the secession movement needed $1 million.

A summary of Brain’s solicitation was obtained from Calemine’s secession files at LAFCO pursuant to a state Public Records Act request.

Calemine said he did not attend the breakfast and had nothing to do with the $6,000 donation that VALPAC made to Valley VOTE several weeks later.

“I discovered it after it was a done deal,” Calemine said. “But none of it was my money, so I didn’t really give it much thought.”

VALPAC Chairman Allen Lawrence said Calemine did not take part in the board vote to make the contribution.

“He’s really been very honest and straightforward and honorable,” Lawrence said. “He’s been totally neutral.”

Asked which VALPAC members provided the money that went to Valley VOTE, Lawrence responded: “Do you really need to know? Because I would rather not bring light to this.”

But Lawrence went on to name six board members who put up $1,000 apiece:

* James A. Dunn, president and chief executive of Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys, who has sought to lease undeveloped land at Van Nuys Airport from the city. Secessionists want LAFCO to give the airport to the new Valley city, but Los Angeles wants to keep it. Airtel Plaza holds several contracts with the city, according to the city controller’s office.

* Walter Mosher, founder and president of Precision Dynamics Corp. in Pacoima.

* Harvey Goldstein of the accounting firm Singer, Lewak, Greenbaum & Goldstein.

* Encino real estate developer Rickey Gelb.

* Marvin D. Selter, Studio City businessman and former president of the city Board of Zoning Appeals.

* David Fleming, Studio City lawyer who chairs the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

Separately, Lawrence said, VALPAC board member Jack Shine, a developer, gave Valley VOTE $1,000, and member Sanford P. Paris, an industrial park builder, gave $950.

The donations were not the first from VALPAC and its members to Valley VOTE.

In 1998, VALPAC gave $13,000 to Valley VOTE’s petition drive for a LAFCO secession study, according to a report that VALPAC filed with the secretary of state’s office.

Among the VALPAC members who contributed were Moss, Art Pfefferman of Donut Inn, Richard M. Zelle of Center Financial Group and Victor Sampson of Coldwell Banker, according to the report.

But the source of most of the $358,000 that Valley VOTE has collected remains a mystery. Among the few donors it has disclosed are the Daily News, which gave $60,000 in 1998, Galpin Motors and Fleming.

Fleming leads another secession group, the San Fernando Valley Civic Foundation, which has raised $194,000, tax records show. But it too keeps donor names secret. Fleming did not return calls for comment.

Since 1999, the City Ethics Commission has been calling on LAFCO to adopt disclosure rules.

LAFCO lawyers had said the commission lacked the power to require disclosure. So state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) helped get a law enacted last year to clarify LAFCO’s authority to adopt disclosure rules.

But even with the new law, LAFCO lawyers say the commission couldn’t apply new disclosure rules to Valley secession, because its proceedings on the breakup proposal started before Hertzberg’s law was enacted.

Hertzberg spokesman Paul Hefner said LAFCO lawyers have misread the law. LAFCO never lacked the power to enact disclosure rules, he said. Under the new law, he added, there is no doubt that LAFCO can adopt rules and apply them to lobbying or fund-raising on Valley secession from that day forward.

If voters let the Valley leave Los Angeles, it’s LAFCO’s plan that will define how basic services are provided to 3.7 million people. LAFCO’s plan also will define the scope of power granted to the new Valley city’s mayor and council for land use and emergency services, among other things.

“It’s almost mind-boggling to me that LAFCO doesn’t see the need for disclosure,” Stern said.

Some on Board Favor Disclosure

Several LAFCO board members agreed the commission should require some disclosure. Among them were Los Angeles City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and county Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

But others showed little enthusiasm. Commissioner James DiGiuseppe, a member of the LAFCO committee on disclosure rules, could not say why it had yet to meet: “I don’t have any answer for that. I don’t know.”

Asked whether LAFCO needed disclosure rules, DiGiuseppe replied, “I really don’t have an opinion at this point.”

LAFCO Chairman Henri Pellissier said he feared some donors might face retribution if their names are revealed. But he said he hadn’t yet focused on the issue.

“We’ve been busy as the devil,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s on the back burner or the front burner right now.”

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Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.