No Party Help for Valley City Candidates

The Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley stepped up its campaign against secession on Thursday with a warning to members that it will not endorse them if they run for office in the proposed Valley city.

Jeffrey Daar, president of the Valley organization, said members should not even seek the offices on the Nov. 5 secession ballot. The deadline for entering the races for Valley mayor and 14 city council seats is today.

“People should put their ambitions on the back burner and should not run,” said Daar, who is co-chairman of the anti-secession group One Los Angeles. “Anybody who runs, no matter what they say, is promoting secession. How can we endorse candidates ... if we oppose secession?”

The party has said secession could result in a Valley government that would reject laws favored by Democrats, including rent control and the living wage.

The Republican Party has not taken a position on secession.

Secessionists denounced the Democratic Party’s stance on candidacies as “undemocratic.”

“It’s shortsighted and stupid,” said Richard Katz, a Democrat who is co-chairman of the Valley Independence Committee. “It’s contrary to everything the Democratic Party stands for to try to persuade people not to run for office.”

Katz, a former assemblyman, said the party should help elect candidates who share its principles.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Valley 51.4% to 28.7%.

The Valley candidates will only take office if secession wins. The same is true for those seeking five city council seats in the Hollywood secession election, which is also on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The Los Angeles County Democratic Party is opposed to the Hollywood and Valley secession measures but has not taken a position on candidacies.

As of Thursday, 43 candidates for Valley offices had filed nominating petitions with the county registrar-recorder. In Hollywood, 11 candidates had filed, including Gene La Pietra, head of the Hollywood Independence Committee.

Nearly 100 others have taken out petitions for the Valley and Hollywood offices. They have until 5 p.m. today to return them.

The offices are nonpartisan, so candidates do not identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans. The best-known Democrats in the race, however, are Mel Wilson, a Valley mayoral candidate, and Scott Svonkin and Richard Leyner, who are running for the Valley council.

Wilson, former president of the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors, said he decided to run when it became clear no other prominent Democrat would.

“I felt very discouraged that none of the folks from my party, the Democratic Party, were willing to get into the race,” Wilson said.

Democrats have been pressured on several fronts to skip the secession election. Labor leaders, for example, have said they will not only refuse to endorse candidates in the breakup election but will withhold support in any future run for office.

Meanwhile, Cecil “Chip” Murray, pastor at First AME Church in South Los Angeles, turned down a nomination by City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo to join the city Ethics Commission, citing his desire to be active in the campaign against secession. A city rule bans ethics commissioners from campaigning.

Murray would have replaced David Fleming, who was forced to step down from the Ethics Commission because he is active in the pro-secession effort.