Panel Hears Final Report on Valley Secession

Promoters hawked “Free the Valley” T-shirts outside and tempers flared inside as the state commission reviewing San Fernando Valley secession heard its final report on the subject Wednesday, flipping the long-running debate into the chaotic world of elective politics.

The commission is expected to vote May 15 on whether to put the matter before voters this fall.

With an election apparently shaping up, the campaigns for and against secession are solidifying.

Both sides are raising money, and former Mayor Richard Riordan, who enjoyed strong support in the Valley, said Wednesday he has signed on as a co-chairman of the campaign to defeat secession. As mayor, Riordan denounced secession as impractical, politically unwise and immoral.

The report presented Wednesday addressed the practical side of those arguments, spelling out some of the details on how a breakup might be accomplished. It urged the Local Agency Formation Commission to approve a proposal by the pro-secession group Valley VOTE to create a new city out of the arrowhead-shaped San Fernando Valley.

If approved by the commission and placed on the November ballot, voters could split the Valley off from the rest of Los Angeles, creating a city of 1.35 million people that would be the nation’s sixth-largest, roughly the size of Philadelphia.

But even as the issue heads toward an expected reckoning with Los Angeles voters, legal questions continue to arise regarding details on what secession would mean for the city it created and the one it left behind.

On Wednesday, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the commission, demanded that the city promise not to charge Valley residents more for water and power if a new city is approved.

The report, released April 19, recommended that Los Angeles be forbidden to charge higher rates to residents of a new municipality, but L.A. officials have said repeatedly they do not believe LAFCO has that power.

Responding to Yaroslavsky’s comments, Fred Merkin, special assistant city attorney, replied that the city does not believe LAFCO has the power to order the city to charge the same rate to Valley residents.

That response infuriated LAFCO Executive Director Larry Calemine, who said he was “stunned” the city would not agree to the requirement.

Calemine threatened to recommend breaking up the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power if the city did not agree in writing by May 15 to charge Valley residents the same rates as those assessed to Los Angeles customers if the two areas break apart.The commission has received conflicting legal opinions on that issue. Its own lawyers have said LAFCO has the power to forbid Los Angeles from charging more to Valley residents, but does not have the power to break up the DWP.

The state legislative counsel, however, has said LAFCO can break up the utility.

And Los Angeles’ chief administrative officer, Ron Deaton, said city officials could elect to raise rates as they felt necessary and then allow the new city to challenge that move in court.

The LAFCO report on the Valley, which cost more than $2 million and has been in the works for 21/2 years, said a Valley city would be financially healthy on its own, though it would have to pay $55.8 million per year to Los Angeles to make up for revenue the older city would lose if the area secedes.

Similar proposals are under study regarding possible secession by Hollywood and the harbor area, with final reports on those areas expected over the next month.

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Times staff writers Tina Daunt and Sue Fox contributed to this report.