Valley Secessionists Weary of L.A.’s Snubs and Snobs

Melissa Bidermann’s grandfather was a San Fernando Valley citrus grower with a farmhouse surrounded by dense orange groves near Devonshire Street and Reseda Boulevard. Not long ago, in the hills just northwest of the old farm, she said, a Basque shepherd still tended his flock.

Now the family farm has been swallowed up by strip malls, the shepherd’s pasturelands plowed under for a subdivision. Bidermann and her husband, Steve, see the Valley’s last open spaces fast being buried under concrete. They blame Los Angeles, that alien place “over the hill” where they believe developers hold sway and the Valley’s hopes and desires are out of sight, out of mind.

The Bidermanns are convinced that the Valley must secede on Nov. 5 to preserve any trace of its past. But they are not activists. They are not participating in the ballot campaign; they haven’t volunteered, attended rallies or donated money.

For the Granada Hills couple and many other everyday citizens who want to break away, secession would satisfy two sentiments: pent-up anger toward the rest of Los Angeles and nostalgia for a Valley that they say has disappeared.

In a series of recent interviews, the Bidermanns and others in the Valley said over and over that they feel like second-class citizens, ignored by city officials who have subordinated Valley needs while giving prize projects to downtown Los Angeles. In contrast to what they see as the arrogance of City Hall, those residents expressed deep affection for the Valley, which they see as a separate place, special to those who live there and celebrate it.

“The rest of the city--it’s just different,” said Melissa Bidermann, 44, an artist. “It’s not us. It’s more hustle and bustle. It’s more dense and hectic. We’re not a part of them. They don’t even want us to be part of them.”

Separatists are a minority of voters citywide, a Times poll last month showed. But in the Valley, more than half favored a split. Bidermann and many others said a new Valley city would not be a cure-all, but they were excited at the possibility of having their problems tackled by people who understand the Valley and appreciate it.

“It’s not going to be Camelot,” said Steve Bidermann, 46, who works as a cost analyst for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “It’s not going to be nirvana. But I really do think it’s going to be a much nicer place to live.” He called Los Angeles “a 4,000-pound giant.”

It’s a giant that Bob Driscoll felt crushing his toes when a neighbor called a downtown city office about the Driscolls’ barking dog. Out of the blue, he received a letter from the city, ordering him downtown for mediation, he said.

“I drove down there,” said the 66-year-old Woodland Hills businessman. “Oh gosh--it takes at least an hour from here, except maybe at 6 in the morning. Why couldn’t something like that have been in Van Nuys? Los Angeles is too big, and bigger is never better.”

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Downtown Too Distant

Driscoll and his wife Marge said they feel cut off from decision making because it’s not easy for them to attend a City Council meeting or to show up at a zoning board hearing.

“We should have votes that count,” said Marge Driscoll, 63, director of member services for the American Camping Assn. “We should be heard. I want that chance.”

Marge Driscoll said she loves downtown, even though she seldom goes there because of traffic. But she can’t help but feel bitter that so many of the city’s best attractions are in that single area.

“All the theaters, the big projects, they’ve all been downtown,” she said. “There’s nothing out here in the Valley, and that’s just not fair.”

She said it’s annoying to hear people joke about how the Valley has no culture, when that same condescending attitude in downtown offices is responsible for the dearth of Valley cultural centers.

For Michael Corgnati, who owns a home in Sherman Oaks, the argument for secession starts and ends with what he sees as this citywide lack of respect. The 55-year-old, who runs a small television production company, grew up in an Illinois town of 10,000. He had never heard of the Valley when he moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s. But he soon got the message, he said.

“I just heard that the Valley’s about 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the city,” he said, laughing, as he sat in a neighbor’s air-conditioned living room in Sherman Oaks. “And everybody said, ‘Don’t live in the Valley. Whatever you do, don’t live in the Valley.’ ”

His decision to move from Hollywood to the Valley embarrassed him a little. It was purely a pocketbook issue, he said. In the Valley, he could afford to buy a decent house.

But his impression of the place changed when he got to know most of his neighbors. He fit right in. He said that he can understand the Valley’s people, that the place reminds him of his hometown.

Still, the Valley stigma haunts him. You can hear a hint of apology in the way he says, “I actually like the place.”

His neighbors also feel the stigma, he said, adding that people in the Valley believe they are slighted by downtown.

His street is a much-used shortcut to the freeway, but neighbors had to scream for years to get speed bumps and then stop signs, he said. Now they can rarely get police to ticket the speeders who routinely run the stop signs.

The police “say to me, ‘The powers that be tell us where we have to be.’ And I guess it’s not the Valley,” he said. “The Westside, that’s where the people of influence live. The Valley, it’s more lunch-pail people.”

Like Corgnati, Tom and Forbes Riley headed to the Valley for a home. They could get so much more house for their money there than in more fashionable areas, they said. On a quiet street in Van Nuys, they found a house with a pool and built-in barbecues out back, bulging orange and grapefruit trees and room enough to start a family. They’re in the middle of a major house renovation. They love the street, where neighbors frequently gather for parties.

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No Help From City Hall

But living there isn’t easy, they said. On nearby Sepulveda Boulevard, prostitutes line the curb at night. There aren’t enough police officers to control the problem. And the whole neighborhood often has to get together to protect the area, as neighbors did when they blocked construction of a 7-Eleven they thought would bring more nighttime trouble.

Nearly every interaction with city departments is difficult, said Tom Riley, 37, whose company sells bingo machines. Often, he has felt that no one cared enough to take five minutes to help him get the information he wanted.

“I wanted to get a dog license for my dog, one of those chips that you implant,” he said. “But I kept calling city offices and I couldn’t find anybody to help me. They would send me to some guy’s voicemail, and I kept leaving messages. And nobody ever called back.”

Forbes Riley is pregnant with twins, and the Rileys worry about the poorly performing neighborhood schools. They believe a separate Valley city, which would be the sixth-largest city in the nation, could persuade the state to let it have its own school system. And they are furious that city officials are telling people that won’t happen.

They see that sort of talk as typical city condescension.

“These people are no dummies,” said Tom Riley. “They know that a Valley city would be in a much better position to get out of the school district. But they are thinking about what’s best for their pockets, not for us. Sometimes people just need to have their real concerns acknowledged, to feel that they’re heard.”

“It’s as if Los Angeles is only the city, downtown, and the Valley is the stepchild,” Forbes Riley said.

Secession leaders often focus their attacks on city services, saying that the Valley doesn’t get its share of attention. On a recent afternoon, Salvador Torres drove his car down a street near his house in North Hollywood, to explain why he thinks the argument makes sense.

Torres, 45, originally from Jalisco, Mexico, moved to Los Angeles as a young man speaking very little English. He now sells flooring at Linoleum City in Hollywood and owns a beige stucco bungalow in North Hollywood. His wife Aida, born in El Salvador, shuttles around workers in a local housecleaning business. They have two children, Salvadore, 12, and Sofia, 7, both in Los Angeles public schools.

Torres, who described himself as a fiscally conservative Democrat, said he has worked very hard to get where he is--but he doesn’t see much return from the city for the taxes he pays. He said it is a little insulting to watch the city give money to anyone who claims a need, even those who make no effort to help themselves.

He’s all in favor of a new, more conservative Valley city, even though that might surprise people because of his background, he said.

“I think a more conservative city attracts investment,” he said. “Home prices will go higher. There’ll be more revenue, more services. The only thing I’m worried about is more conservative police. Maybe they’ll see me, a Mexican with a head shaved, and pick me up,” he said, laughing.

Recently, he’s noticed city crews working in his neighborhood. A sidewalk a block away is being repaved, even though the old sidewalk was fine, Torres said. For months, he’s been hounding the city, complaining about the cars that drag race all night long each weekend on nearby Saticoy Street. The other day, he walked into the North Hollywood police station on his day off, trying once more to get help.

That afternoon, while cataloging his unsuccessful attempts to get the city involved, he got a call from the city attorney’s office, eager to help.

Torres said it bothers him that the city thinks him so naive that he wouldn’t connect the sudden interest in fixing Valley problems with the upcoming secession vote.

“I formed my opinions a long time ago,” he said. “The whole Valley has been feeling disenfranchised and neglected. This is a good time for people to ask for things to be done, but it won’t last. Too little, too late.”