Secession Tops the Agenda

Like a good real estate agent, Mayor James K. Hahn knows that location matters. Last week he spent a day planting saplings in front of an elementary school and meeting with community leaders--pretty standard mayoral fare. But it wasn’t just any day or any community. The new mayor invested his first full day in office with both symbol and substance by spending it in the San Fernando Valley.

In his inaugural speech the day before, Hahn stressed his commitment to keeping Los Angeles together. He followed words with action by going to the home turf of the oldest and strongest of the several secession movements threatening to break up Los Angeles.

First he broke a sweat helping schoolchildren shovel dirt. Then he broke bread with two dozen Valley community leaders over a discussion about neighborhood councils. He said he wants to quash secession not through scare tactics but by earning residents’ trust.

Proposals to split off the Valley and Hahn’s own home turf, the harbor area, are under study by a government agency called the Local Agency Formation Commission, which will decide in the next few months whether to put breakup to a public vote. (A third proposal, for Hollywood secession, is not as far along.)

The commission’s preliminary report found that a Valley city could succeed on its own financially and that breakup would not harm what was left of Los Angeles as long as the new city paid “alimony” to make up for lost tax revenues. The Valley secessionist group essentially agreed with the commission’s findings. Los Angeles officials did not.

Contrary to what some secession advocates have implied, disagreeing is not the same as scare-mongering.

City officials are right to seek specific details about so complicated an undertaking as breaking up the nation’s second-largest city. They’re smart to question vague proposals for dividing precious water rights or setting up a joint powers authority to oversee the Department of Water and Power. City residents deserve better answers. And they deserve a mayor who will watch out for their interests, no matter where they live.

However, just as important as making an argument against anything is making the case for something else. What Los Angeles needs--what it has needed for a long time--is a leader who can make the case for keeping the city together.

Hahn last week peeled off his suit jacket, grabbed a shovel and got to work. Those advocating secession owe his efforts a chance to take root.