New Slant on Harbor Area Bottom Line

Challenging a study that found a new harbor-area city would operate in the red, a secession group released a revised plan Saturday that it believes would balance the books and provide better service to San Pedro and Wilmington.

The plan by the Harbor Study Foundation provides the most detailed proposal yet for dividing up assets and creating a structure for a new municipality to serve 179,000 residents of the harbor area.

“It’s a typical small-town, general-law city like hundreds of others that exist throughout California,” said Andrew Mardesich, executive director of the foundation, which drafted the plan with the help of private consultants.

New proposals in the 37-page document include:

* A transition period would be extended from eight months to 18 months, during which the city of Los Angeles would continue to provide most services to the new municipality.

* Although the Port of Los Angeles would be within the boundaries of the new municipality, it would continue to be operated by Los Angeles. The new city would have planning powers that would affect development at the facility.

* The plan allows for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to take over policing if the Los Angeles Police Department cannot match county proposals to provide service for $15 million less in costs.

* The harbor city would get water and electricity from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at the same rates as the rest of L.A., but the agency would be reorganized to give the new municipality a share of equity and control over the system.

The revised plan identifies several revenue sources, from oil pipeline fees to truck permit charges, that it claims were undercounted in a study by the Local Agency Formation Commission. That study, released in April, predicted the new city would face a $31-million annual budget shortfall, which would be significant for a municipality with an annual budget of $155 million.

“The [study] concluded that economic possibilities for a new harbor-area city would not be bright,” said a news release from the foundation. “This plan presents a new harbor-area city that will be both vibrant and viable economically, and its transition will have minimal economic impact upon the remaining city of Los Angeles.”

LAFCO must determine that breaking up Los Angeles would not cause financial harm to the new or old city before it can place a secession proposal on the November 2002 ballot for voters of both areas to consider.

The revised plan will be submitted Monday to LAFCO for its use in drafting a final financial study of the secession proposal.

“The [secession] plan indicates that the proposed harbor-area city can be financially feasible and could maintain municipal services at levels equaling or surpassing existing levels provided by the city of Los Angeles,” said the document released Saturday.

The plan identifies ways in which the LAFCO study underestimated revenues by $20 million to $30 million annually.

Revenue not counted by LAFCO, the secessionists said, included $5.5 million in franchise fees for gas and oil pipelines, and $13.5 million in truck permit fees.

At the same time, the plan questions expense projections. The Sheriff’s Department this week estimated it could provide a higher level of police services for a new harbor-area city for $27 million, much less than the $42 million it said the city of Los Angeles now spends.

Despite the plan’s assertion that a new city can be created without raising taxes or cutting services, the idea of the harbor area breaking away continued to draw opposition Saturday from outgoing Mayor Richard Riordan and Mayor-elect James Hahn, who lives in San Pedro.

Hahn, according to spokeswoman Julie Wong, “is committed to doing anything he can to keep the city together. He is aware that one complaint people have is that they do not get their fair share of city services. As mayor, he is going to provide every community in Los Angeles with its fair share of city services.”

Riordan also continues to believe Los Angeles and its residents would be better off united, said Carolina Guevara, a spokeswoman for the mayor.

“The mayor believes it would be much stronger to stay together,” she said Saturday. “As the second-largest city in the nation we would have more weight in Sacramento and Washington.”

Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. of San Pedro, who has been sympathetic to the secessionists’ concerns, said it will be tough to persuade residents of the harbor area to split from Los Angeles.

“They have a big selling job to do, especially now that the new mayor of Los Angeles is from San Pedro and his sister, who is also from San Pedro, is the new council member,” Svorinich said, referring to the election of Janice Hahn as the councilwoman representing the harbor area.

“Don’t you think the new mayor and council member are going to do everything they can to make things better for San Pedro and Wilmington?” Svorinich said.

But Mardesich said that the Hahns will still be up against a City Hall that has built-in biases against responding to the needs of the harbor area.

“And the basic issue of self-governance is still there,” he added.

The new plan calls for a part-time, five-member City Council elected citywide that would run the city with the assistance of an appointed city manager and contracted city attorney from the private sector.

The cityhood ballot would include five potential city names for voters to chose from, to be submitted by the foundation to LAFCO after a survey is conducted.

The plan proposes that the harbor city take over the Los Angeles police station, electric generating station and sewage treatment plant that are located in the harbor area.

In addition to the Harbor area secession plan, LAFCO is also studying the financial feasibility of cityhood proposals by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

The three breakaway areas represent 44.5% of Los Angeles’ population.