Backing a Secession Study Doesn’t Equate to Favoring a Split

When Valley VOTE launched its drive for secession, a friend was approached by a solicitor to sign a petition. He responded by saying that he was undecided on this question.

The solicitor assured him that the petition was for a study only, and not whether anyone was for or against secession. This sounded reasonable to my friend, and he signed.

Weeks later, my friend awakened one morning to read in his newspaper that the petition had qualified. He was surprised to learn that Valley VOTE leaders Richard Close and Jeff Brain were claiming that they had received a mandate from San Fernando Valley residents favoring secession. My friend felt that he had been snookered.

His chagrin is a sorry reflection on the high-minded ethics professed by the leaders of this group.

More importantly, if you extrapolate his experience by the many thousands who also signed as trustingly as he did, it would seem that Valley VOTE has nothing more than a mandate for a study and that the public is undecided on the matter of secession.

Although this is the glaring defect in Valley VOTE’s interpretation of the petition results, there were other clues that indicated a less than enthusiastic desire for secession.

For example, Valley VOTE’s boast about grass-roots support is open to question. This was demonstrated when the group was unable to find enough volunteers to circulate petitions and was forced to hire a professional firm to finish the job.

Even with these paid solicitors, Valley VOTE was unable to meet the six-month deadline for the required number of signatures. What saved it was a freak incident in which the group was prevented from soliciting signatures at a Van Nuys air show. Valley VOTE’s complaint about city employees trampling on democratic rights was so strident that the county extended the filing deadline by 90 days, plenty of time to make up for the lack of signatures. But this was hardly an indication that residents were breaking down doors to sign up.

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Then there is the scarcity of organizational endorsements. Much of the public rhetoric supporting secession emanates from one region of the Valley, an area south of Ventura Boulevard. This is where the politically powerful Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. holds sway. Close is the perennial president of the association and chairman of VOTE, but for all of this clout, he has yet to come up with a long list of organizations from throughout the Valley that have endorsed secession.

Valley VOTE’s quixotic belief that the group is supported by an army of followers had its first real test when the organization called upon this multitude to flock to the polls in November and defeat Proposition F. When the dust had settled, Close and his lieutenants were standing alone. Proposition F, if you recall, was the measure that added much-needed police, fire and animal regulation facilities to the city, including the Valley. These were typical of the improvements Valley VOTE had clamored for but, when push came to shove, the group decided that the ballot measure wasn’t such a good idea. The reasoning was that Valley residents would have to share an inordinate amount of the bonded indebtedness. The implication was that this was not an emergency, and if Valley residents would wait for the inevitable separation from the city, newly elected Valley officials would provide these same facilities at less cost to taxpayers. From the outcome, it was obvious that voters decided that a bird in hand was worth two in the bush.

More recently, the Valley VOTE generals sheathed their swords and took a more humbling stance by heartily endorsing a large expenditure to fill potholes in the Valley.

The point is, if you scratch the surface of Valley VOTE’s pronouncements, you discover a slippery foundation of assumptions--and nothing more.