Secession Bid Dealt 2 Setbacks

San Fernando Valley cityhood proponents are expected to lose a high-profile aspirant for mayor of the would-be city today, at a time when two secession leaders say they would drop the civic breakaway attempt if a plan for a vastly revamped Los Angeles government could replace it on the November ballot.

The twin developments are a sign of the waning prospects of voters approving a separate city in the Valley, some political analysts and supporters of a united Los Angeles said Wednesday.

But backers of a Valley city said their movement remains strong. They said they are unfazed both by the fact that some of their leaders are actively discussing the formation of boroughs within Los Angeles, rather than a separate city, and by the apparent loss of state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) as a candidate for Valley mayor.

The Valley city supporters also claimed one clear victory Wednesday, as a coalition of chambers of commerce endorsed the new city, citing as potential benefits lower taxes and less bureaucratic red tape.

Alarcon is expected to announce today that he will not run for mayor of the prospective city of 1.3 million and to say he will oppose the breakup of Los Angeles, according to sources.

The legislator’s long-awaited decision will deprive the movement of one of the Valley’s most prominent Democrats and Latinos. But it is not entirely unexpected--Alarcon had never committed to a Valley city, or to becoming its first leader.

The former Los Angeles city councilman declined Wednesday to confirm what he will announce today in a news conference at a Van Nuys fire station. Alarcon said his decision is based on several factors, including how secession would affect the Valley’s poor and working-class residents.

“I have always said that if I determined secession was not good for the Valley and I decided not to support it, that I would not run for mayor,” Alarcon said Wednesday.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a USC political scientist, said Alarcon’s decision will significantly harm the bid for a Valley city.

“This is another blow. It is not helpful to the secessionists on several levels,” Bebitch Jeffe said. “There is a dearth of strong, well-known candidates, and he would have drawn Latino voters to the cause.”

Secession opponents, including Miguel Contreras, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, agreed that Alarcon’s decision not to run “would be a big victory for us and a real blow to the pro-secessionists.”

Bebitch Jeffe and others noted that this week’s developments come as secessionists and others continue to absorb this month’s Los Angeles Times Poll, which showed a Valley city would be rejected by voters. A majority of Valley residents support the new city, but not those in the rest of Los Angeles, as required to complete the breakaway.

Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain acknowledged that Alarcon’s candidacy would have brought leadership and “diversity” to the cityhood campaign. But Brain said there are several Latinos who plan to run for the new City Council and that the loss of Alarcon would not be a setback.

“Alarcon chose to align himself with the unions and turn his back on the people of the Valley,” Brain said. “I’m extremely disappointed in him.”

Alarcon’s withdrawal would leave Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge) as the only announced candidate for mayor. Although he is a moderate, Richman is running in a Valley where 51.4% of the registered voters are Democrats and 28.7% are Republicans.

In another development Wednesday, the chairman of the secession effort and a key financial backer said they have considered a proposal by state Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) to back division of the city of Los Angeles into boroughs, as an alternative to creating a new Valley city.

The duo--Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close and secession backer David Fleming-- said they would only agree to back off of secession efforts if Los Angeles leaders supported the creation of highly autonomous boroughs that would give the Valley the local control it adamantly desires.

“The concept of the Valley city was local control, and the concept of a borough system is local control,” Close said. A borough system would “accomplish the goals of Valley cityhood without the risk and the carnage of the Nov. 5 election.”

Delaying the Vote

Close said that he would recommend that several Valley VOTE members who signed the cityhood application ask that the plan be kept off the ballot for two years, but only if city officials made a serious commitment to creating boroughs. Only at that time--after the city showed it could create a system giving real power to the Valley--would secession leaders formally drop their plans for an independent city, Close said.

But swapping a Valley city proposal for a borough plan on the November ballot seems highly problematic.

The secession leaders cannot legally withdraw the cityhood issue from the ballot, because a state commission has already determined the plan is feasible and asked that it be put before voters, said John Krattli, the assistant county counsel who advises the Local Agency Formation Commission.

Krattli said cityhood is destined for the November ballot in response to petitions signed by 202,000 Valley voters, not just the secession leaders.

“It’s not up to the chief petitioners,” to take secession off the ballot, he said. “This was an expression of the will of the people to have this looked at.”

Only the county Board of Supervisors could prevent a vote this November, by simply neglecting to put the measure on the ballot, Krattli said. But he said that the supervisors could only avoid moving the question to the ballot, an action they are expected to take July 25, with “valid, legitimate reasons to cause a delay.”

The legal niceties may be moot, however, because Mayor James K. Hahn and other supporters of a unified city appear to be in no mood to compromise. Invigorated by polling showing secession in trouble, Los Angeles leaders believe they can defeat secession without chopping the city into boroughs.

When approached with such a plan, “the mayor refused it out of hand,” Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said.

The shift by Close and Fleming grew out of several days of negotiations orchestrated by Hertzberg and involving some of the region’s most powerful leaders.

Included in the discussions aimed at reaching a compromise on secession were billionaire Eli Broad, businessman Ed Roski, former Mayor Richard Riordan and union leader Julie Butcher, along with Hertzberg, Fleming and Close, participants said.

“I was trying to bring them together and avoid the horrible difficulties that will occur no matter what the outcome (of the November election) is,” said Hertzberg, who has developed a detailed borough proposal of his own.

Particularly damaging politically, Hertzberg said, would be a scenario in which the Valley votes to secede, but the rest of the city, required by law to approve of such a move, does not agree.

The talks fell flat, however, when Hahn rejected the compromise proposal.

Bebitch Jeffe, the political scientist, said the talks show a waning confidence by Valley cityhood leaders. “I think it says that they too think the momentum has slowed and that it is quite possible secession will fail,” she said.

Valley cityhood leaders denied any lack of confidence, saying they have always been looking for the best form of governance for the vast suburban region.

One irony became obvious in the flurry of discussions about the fate of the November vote: Secession opponents like Hahn and Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla suddenly were adopting the language of the secessionists, insisting the Valley cityhood vote must go forward.

“No matter what you believe about secession, the voters should have the right to vote on this,” Padilla said. “To put something on the ballot and pull it off again sounds like deal-making to me.”

With the cityhood vote apparently still headed for the November ballot, secessionists touted a new endorsement Wednesday--from the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley. The coalition of chambers voted 31 to 13 to support Valley cityhood.

The organization represents 25 chambers of commerce and business associations in the Valley, which in turn have more than 8,000 business members.

Endorsement Boost

Bill Powers, chairman of the United Chambers and a board member with the secession group Valley VOTE, said the endorsement will be a big boost to secession.

“This is very significant to the cityhood movement because it reflects that business leaders in the Valley have had enough of being treated as second-rate citizens by downtown,” Powers said.

He predicted a Valley city would likely abolish or cut the gross receipts tax that is charged in Los Angeles but not in Glendale or Burbank.

The Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Central City Assn., a downtown business alliance, previously decided to oppose secession. Another potent business alliance, the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. has decided to postpone taking a position until late September.

“We wanted to give our members more time to study the issue,” said Scott Schmidt, VICA’s government liaison director.

In particular, VICA members want to wait to see who decides to run for mayor and city council in the new city, which will not be known until August.

“If you are going to buy stock in a company, you want to know who is going to be running it,” Schmidt said.

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Times staff writer Massie Ritsch contributed to this report.