Deadline Set for Secession Decision

The commission studying plans for San Fernando Valley and Harbor area secession from Los Angeles voted Wednesday to decide by March 2002 whether to put the proposals before voters.

The Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County set the deadline in response to accusations by its staff that City Hall was trying to delay the secession study by withholding data on municipal operations.

Commissioner Hal Bernson, a city councilman from Granada Hills, said the deadline would enable the panel to finish the fiscal study in time to put the proposals on the November 2002 ballot if it concludes that a municipal breakup is feasible.

Under state law, the next chance to put a secession proposal on the ballot would be the presidential primary election in March 2004.

“Some of us won’t be here in 2004,” Bernson said.

At a commission meeting Wednesday, city Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton that L.A. was plotting to sabotage the study by providing an incomplete report on municipal revenue.

“We in no way conspired to delay this report,” Deaton told the commission. “I conspire much better than this, and can do it very well.”

John Krattli, an attorney for the commission, told the panel it could ask a judge to order the city to provide any data needed for the study, but commissioners voiced reluctance to take the dispute to court.

“We’re nowhere near having to do this,” said LAFCO Chairman Thomas E. Jackson.