10 Groups Join the Battle Over Secession

Ten groups and counting are gearing up separate campaigns for and against the breakup of Los Angeles, a battle that will be fought over the airwaves, through the mail, in neighborhoods and on the Internet.

The political, business, labor and homeowner organizations facing off in the Nov. 5 secession election plan to spend a combined $10 million on media ads, voter registration drives, and precinct-walking operations focused mostly on the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, the breakaway regions where the fighting is likely to be fiercest.

Allied against secession are some of Los Angeles’ leading political figures, their richest benefactors and the city’s powerful labor movement.

The unions representing Los Angeles police officers and service workers are expected to play a big role in the campaign.

Mayor James K. Hahn, former mayor Richard Riordan and former mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa have set aside their longtime differences to work together against secession.

Hahn’s L.A. United plans to raise $5 million for a campaign that will rely heavily on television and radio spots.

On the other side, Valley secessionists are assembling a grass-roots network that they hope will ignite populist sentiments like those captured by Proposition 13 in the 1970s.

They concede that they will have less money than their opponents, but are counting on enthusiasm to make up the difference.

And in Hollywood, secession backers say they intend to rely on volunteers and about $1 million in contributions.

The pro-secession efforts also could receive a jolt in coming weeks as dozens of candidates for offices in the proposed cities begin lining up their campaigns.

Each candidate will be, at least implicitly, stumping for the breakup that would create those offices, in effect expanding the range of pro-secession campaigns.

On the surface, the efforts on both sides will identify the basic service arguments--the benefits of small government versus the economies of scale that Los Angeles claims to provide: lower taxes, faster police response time, cheap water. But many of the groups are prepared to play rough.

Secession, say its supporters, is the ticket out of a floundering metropolis, a crime-ridden and polluted city whose schools are failing its children. Critics counter that secession does little to address those problems--schools, for instance, would be unaffected by municipal breakup--and that breaking the city into pieces will set both the new cities and the old on a perilous course into the unknown.

Campaign Expands

The number of groups launching campaigns seems to grow by the day. The League of Women Voters, citing the feared cost of a breakup, announced over the weekend that it will oppose secession. A loose-knit coalition of Westchester activists said Monday it will support secession because the area’s City Council member, Ruth Galanter, is due to be shifted to the Valley as part of redistricting.

Some politicians say the various organizations need to coordinate their messages so that voters will not become confused or alienated.

“There better be some coordination, or it’s going to be a circus,” warned City Councilman Dennis Zine.

Hollywood and Valley secessionists say they are addressing the problem.

The leaders of their organizations have joined forces and are now sharing a political consulting firm, Goddard Claussen Porter and Novelli.

Kam Kuwata, a strategist for Hahn, said many anti-secession campaigns also are pulling together. Some secession opponents, however, say privately they plan independent efforts and want little to do with the mayor’s push.

Hahn said he was relieved that a state panel held a harbor secession proposal off the Nov. 5 ballot, meaning his campaign will be less complicated.

“Obviously, I think if you have to fight a battle on three fronts that makes it more difficult,” Hahn said.

But there remains the challenge of reaching diverse audiences of voters--from impassioned pro-secession residents in the breakaway areas to people in other parts of the city who have yet to pay much attention to the campaign.

Valley and Hollywood secession groups hope to spend $2.5 million to $5 million. The secessionists say they will make up for any spending gap with their opponents by enlisting armies of volunteers to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and reach out to voters over the Internet.

Larry Schubert, a consultant for the secessionists, said the campaign will probably use a Web tactic that worked in 1998 when his firm helped win passage of a statewide school bond measure. Volunteers downloaded all the printed material from a Web site, then distributed it neighborhood by neighborhood.

“Our material was all over the place,” Schubert said.

The San Fernando Valley Independence Committee, which claims to have 2,000 volunteers, will head the leading pro-secession campaign. Its strategy is to capture 65% of the vote in the Valley, which could carry the vote citywide because of traditionally lower turnout south of Mulholland Drive.

To win, each secession proposal must be approved by a majority of voters in the breakaway area and a majority citywide.

The City of Hollywood Foundation is the tentative name for the pro-secession group there. It has 200 volunteers so far, said organizer Fares Wehbe. The group also is counting on lopsided support in Hollywood.

Facing Opposition

The secessionists face a growing array of opponents.

Recently, two small groups of activists--Hollywood and Los Angeles as One and Divide We Fall--announced that they will fight secession separately from Hahn’s campaign.

In the Valley, the group One L.A. was formed by Valley civic leaders. It also plans an independent campaign.

At the same time, a bigger effort is being plotted by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which has hired political consultant Parke Skelton to plan mail and phone banking to the 200,000 union members in Los Angeles. Forty percent of the members are in the Valley, Skelton said.

Similarly, the Service Employees International Union, Local 347, which represents most blue-collar city employees, has already set up a phone bank to target its 8,000 members in Los Angeles.

The directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing officers, are expected to vote as early as Wednesday to oppose secession. It is already crafting a campaign, as is the United Firefighters of Los Angeles.

The two unions are concerned that their members’ jobs could be in jeopardy if secession wins and the Valley and Hollywood eventually contract with Los Angeles County for police and fire services.

The unions say they will warn voters that public safety may suffer if that happens.

Meanwhile, political party organizations are also readying campaigns. The Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley opposes secession. The chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee said Monday that the panel is likely to vote tonight to oppose secession.

Chairman Eric Bauman said such a vote would free up money and volunteers, including from the state party, to fight a breakup.

Nearly 60% of the city’s 1.45 million registered voters are Democrats.

Media ads for both sides will likely begin in September, a month earlier than normal, according to Bill Carrick, a political strategist working on the Hahn effort.

“The interest is there much earlier, and [it’s] more intense,” Carrick said.

He said focus groups conducted by Hahn’s campaign indicate 75% of the electorate is “movable” on secession.

“This is up for grabs,” Carrick added.