Secession to Remain on Nov. 5 Ballot

A state commission on Monday denied a request by the city of Los Angeles to reconsider putting San Fernando Valley secession on the Nov. 5 ballot and found that the city’s demands for $288 million a year in separation payments were unjustified.

The Local Agency Formation Commission voted 6 to 2, with one abstention, to deny the request for reconsideration. The majority found that the agency’s financial analysis of the breakup had been sound and rejected the city’s claim that the rest of Los Angeles would be hurt by splitting the city under the rules set by LAFCO.

Specifically, the LAFCO majority said that the Valley’s $127.1-million payment to Los Angeles in the first year after the breakup would be adequate compensation for the loss of the area north of Mulholland Drive. Under the formula approved last month by LAFCO, that payment would decline by 5% every year for 20 years.

City officials had asked LAFCO to reconsider that formula. They said the payment should start at $288 million and should continue at that amount for 25 years.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of LAFCO, said any adjustment in the separation payment, or alimony, would have postponed the cityhood vote until 2004.

“We have done the best we can with the information we had,” Yaroslavsky said. “We have a difference of opinion with the city.”

He said the city has other options if the alimony is not enough to cover some centralized costs. “One may be to modify the way they spend money,” he said.

The president of Valley VOTE, Jeff Brain, ridiculed the claim that Los Angeles could not substantially cut centralized costs if it had one-third fewer residents to serve.

“It appears the city through ... this request for reconsideration continues to try to block the people from simply having an opportunity to vote on this,” Brain said.

But Ellen Sandt of the city administrator’s office told the panel that a consultant hired by the city had shown that there would be costs not covered in the breakup.

For example, she faulted LAFCO for apportioning costs for building maintenance on the basis of the percentage of city buildings in each city, noting that the facilities in downtown Los Angeles are much larger and require more maintenance.

Commissioners Beatrice Proo and Cindy Miscikowski, who voted in favor of reconsideration, and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who abstained, indicated that they remained concerned that the breakup might not create a financially viable Valley city without harming the rest of Los Angeles.

Burke said she wanted more analysis of the amount of alimony needed so the remainder of Los Angeles would not be financially harmed.

Commission Chairman Henri F. Pellissier said it appeared the city had made the request in a last-ditch attempt to block a vote or to set the agency up for a lawsuit if secession passed.

“Reconsideration is not appropriate,” he said. “It would keep this off the November ballot.”

Kam Kuwata, an advisor to Mayor James K. Hahn on secession, took the ruling in stride. “LAFCO is like the French judge in the Winter Olympics,” he said. “They predetermined what they were going to do, so it is no surprise.”

The Valley cityhood measure next goes to a hearing on July 25 before the county Board of Supervisors, which is required by state law to put it on the Nov. 5 ballot unless 50% of the registered voters in Los Angeles file protests in writing, an unlikely prospect.

The city has also requested reconsideration of a Hollywood secession measure for the same ballot. LAFCO is to take up that issue July 26.

Meanwhile, although Valley VOTE has proposed that the new Valley city council members be paid $75,000 annually and the Valley mayor $100,000, Miscikowski and other city officials said Monday that their reading of state law is that salaries would be limited to $1,000 per month, at least at first.

Miscikowski said state law would require the new Valley city council to go to the voters to set salaries higher than $1,000 per month.

LAFCO counsel John Krattli said Miscikowski’s interpretation of the law is correct.

The panel also rejected requests from residents of North Hills and the Sherwood Forest section of Northridge to redraw council district boundaries for the new Valley city so that communities would not be split between council districts. Former U.S. Rep. Bobbi Fiedler said communities had been improperly split to concentrate Latino voter strength.