Secession Offers Clout, Latino Candidates Say

With 17 Latinos running for office in a proposed San Fernando Valley city, several of the candidates said Monday that the election presents an opportunity for their community to increase its influence in municipal government.

Half a dozen Latino candidates, including two contenders for mayor, held a news conference in Sylmar in anticipation of an event planned for Friday by the new Latino Coalition for a United Los Angeles. At that event, Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Panorama City), state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and City Council President Alex Padilla are planning to detail how they see secession harming the Latino community.

At the pro-secession event, candidates, including Oscar Mendoza, noted that Latinos would make up 42% of the population of the proposed Valley city. The current Los Angeles council includes just one Valley councilman who is Latino, and there is no Latina on the City Council.

“It’s a historic opportunity for Latinos in the San Fernando Valley,” said Mendoza, a small-business owner running in the 2nd District. He noted that two Latinas are also candidates.

The 17 Latino candidates are among 120 contenders in the Nov. 5 election for 14 city council seats in the proposed Valley city and one mayoral seat.

Secessionists said the council district maps that would take effect if voters approve the Valley’s breakaway this fall indicate that the Latino population would form a plurality in nine of the 14 council districts.

However, Irene Tovar, a leader of the anti-secession Latino group, noted that Latinos in only four of the Valley city council districts represent more than 44% of the registered voters, the percentage that some demographers say gives a voting group a strong ability to elect a candidate of its choice.

Tovar said recent redistricting created five of the 15 City Council seats in Los Angeles in such a way that Latino voters will have powerful sway over the choice of their representatives. “We don’t think Latinos will benefit from secession,” she said, adding that there is concern about whether the new city will adopt existing rent-control and living-wage laws.

Alan Clayton of the California Latino Redistricting Commission said that although five Latinos currently serve on the City Council, one of those districts has low enough Latino voter registration that it is not clear whether Latinos could continue to dominate voting in that area.

Carlos Ferreyra, who is running in the Valley city’s 12th District, also noted that council districts in the proposed city will each include fewer than 100,000 people, compared with up to 250,000 for each Los Angeles district.

“Latinos in the Valley can be assured that they will be closer to their municipal government in a new Valley city,” Ferreyra said.

The anti-secession event on Friday is being held by a coalition that includes the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Latin American Civic Assn. and the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Mexican American Political Assn.

In preparation for the event, Padilla and County Supervisor Gloria Molina flew to Sacramento on Monday to meet with Latino state legislators who represent the Los Angeles area and who they would like to become more active in opposing the breakup.

At the same time, three new groups filed papers with the city Ethics Commission on Monday to begin fund-raising to weigh in on the issue: African Americans/Latinos Against Secession, Free Hollywood and Valley Residents Against the Breakup.

With the flurry of activity Monday involving Latino leaders, both sides on the secession issue are signaling that they will battle hard for the Latino vote, which is so far divided.

A Los Angeles Times poll on July 2 found that 52% of Valley voters and 59% of Valley Latino voters favored secession, while only 38% of voters citywide and 36% of citywide Latino voters favored the breakup.

A poll commissioned by KABC-TV Channel 7 and released Monday similarly found that a majority of likely voters in the city as a whole wanted to keep Los Angeles together, while a majority of likely voters in the Valley supported the breakup.

While secession advocates and critics argued about Latino voting strength Monday, the county registrar-recorder announced that one mayoral candidate will not appear on the ballot. Wayne “T-bear” Crochet of Van Nuys has been eliminated from the list of mayoral candidates because he did not file sufficient signatures, the office said.