Hahn Goes Into Full Attack Mode on Secession

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn strode into a park gymnasium a mile from his San Pedro home Saturday to launch his personal campaign against secession, calling the proposed Valley, Hollywood and harbor area breakaways a “recipe for disaster.”

“This harebrained scheme is going to leave people worse off than they are now,” he said before his testimony to the state agency that oversees secession issues. “It’s a bad idea, and I’m going to convince everyone that it’s not in our best interest.”

The mayor’s campaign-style comments come as the breakup of Los Angeles appears headed for the November ballot.

Last week the Local Agency Formation Commission decided that Hollywood would be financially viable if it split from the city, and it has already issued a preliminary report laying out how the San Fernando Valley and the harbor area, composed of San Pedro and Wilmington, could support themselves.

In anticipation of an all-out secession battle at the polls, Hahn and other opponents have begun strategizing their campaign, which will probably play into emotional themes about keeping Los Angeles together.

The first words from Hahn on Saturday: “We are a city better united than divided.”

Hahn said he waited until the close of the primary election season before launching into anti-secession messages, but now intends to be “very aggressive” in voicing his opposition. He said he will hit the phones to raise money for the campaign and devote several hours a week to fending off the breakup.

While listening to a report projecting that to be financially viable a new harbor city would have to slash services now provided by Los Angeles by 32%, Hahn shook his head no. During and after his testimony he used some of his strongest words yet against secession.

“Imagine, almost a one-third reduction in services. This is not what people in my neighborhood want to see,” Hahn told the panel. No one in the harbor area wants to see any reduction of services, he said.

He said secession supporters in the Valley, Hollywood and the harbor area are “chasing this phantom solution which really looks like a recipe for disaster to me.”

Under the harbor scenario, he said, Los Angeles cannot afford to subsidize $59 million in services during the fledging city’s transition period--as LAFCO has suggested--even if the new harbor city paid Los Angeles back with interest over a 10-year period.

“It makes you mad, it makes you angry, because the people are being hoodwinked here by secession proponents,” Hahn said of the so-called deferred payments. “How are we going to defer those costs? We would have to make additional cuts in our budget.”

Instead of wasting so much energy on secession, the mayor said, “let’s spend that energy making our services work better. Let’s spend that energy listening to people in the neighborhoods--that’s the way we address the problems.”

He predicted his campaign against the breakup will show “that there are not a lot of people behind these movements, but unfortunately the legal process has allowed this molehill to turn into a snowball down the mountain.”

He said no one in his own San Pedro neighborhood supports secession. Yet 13,470 residents, or 25% of the registered voters in the proposed city, signed a petition in favor of the split.

“We need to control our own destiny,” said Andrew Mardesich, a longtime San Pedro resident who heads the breakaway group.

His committee is not deterred by the projection of service cuts in a new city, he said.

“There needs to be a 30% cut in waste. We won’t reduce services, we’ll reduce waste,” Mardesich said. “All Hahn knows is big money and big government.”

He characterized the harbor campaign as a tight grass-roots movement that will not be swayed by a sophisticated political campaign.

“It’s all word-of-mouth out here. Everyone knows somebody or is related to somebody,” he said. “That’s our power.”

About 20 residents attended the LAFCO hearing, one of a series being held throughout the secession areas. Nearly every speaker favored the split, citing the lack of city services and concerns over air pollution.

“There are streets in Wilmington that have never been paved. There are streets in Wilmington without sidewalks,” said Jesse Marquez, president of a local environmental group, who charged that the city has long ignored the heavy amounts of air pollution generated by the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.

Bonnie Christensen, a 47-year San Pedro resident who supports the breakup, wants the people of her community to vote on the issue, convinced that they will win a new city.

“Our new city will provide oversight on the issue,” she said, adding that she is not concerned about potential budget problems. “We will have so much community pride that as our own city we will be able to fill in the gaps.”