Fighting Secession a Tricky Task for Hahn

With poll results showing citywide support for San Fernando Valley secession, the onus is on Mayor James K. Hahn to persuade voters to keep Los Angeles together.

The mayor’s political consultants say that those behind the movement to break up the city are selling snake oil. They also say their planned $5-million campaign against secession in the fall will make voters see the light.

But experts not affiliated with either side say that Hahn could alienate voters if he conducts the campaign in a way that disparages secession supporters. Hahn advisors have said the campaign might try to frighten voters with warnings of higher taxes and reduced services.

“A negative campaign could backfire on the opponents,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the commission charged with analyzing the secession proposal and heads the committee that is hammering out the details of the plan.

Yaroslavsky, who has not taken a position on secession, chided the mayor for calling it a “harebrained” idea at a public meeting last week.

“Forty-six percent of the people on first impression say they support the idea,” Yaroslavsky said. “They don’t like to be called harebrained.”

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times released the results of its latest poll on Valley secession, which showed 46% of voters citywide favor a municipal breakup, 38% oppose it and 16% are undecided. Among Valley voters, the poll found 55% in favor, 36% opposed and 9% undecided. To win, the secession proposal must pass in both the Valley and the city at large.

The support citywide increased by 10 percentage points from a year ago, when the last Times poll on secession was conducted.

It is difficult to pinpoint a reason for the change. One possibility is that disenchantment with the mayor, whose approval ratings have dropped, contributed to frustrations about the city. Another is that secession seems more credible than it did a year ago. The state agency that oversees the process said an independent Valley would be financially healthy.

The poll also followed months of public hearings on the proposal as well as negotiations between the city and secessionists on the terms of a split.

“This is a good wake-up call for people who are opposed to secession,” said Bill Carrick, a media consultant hired by Hahn for the anti-secession campaign.

“They’re going to have to wage a real serious campaign here.”

Hahn’s task could be more difficult if, as expected, secession proposals for Hollywood and the harbor area are placed on the November ballot with the Valley plan.

None of the secession bids has yet been approved to go before voters, but the state agency that oversees the incorporation of new cities has said it intends to complete its analysis of the three proposals in time for the November election.

Secession proponents said their campaign will emphasize the findings of state regulators that a Valley city would be financially viable and would not harm residents in the rest of the city.

They say that they, too, plan to raise several million dollars for a campaign.

“Those are pretty encouraging [poll] numbers,” said former state Assemblyman Richard Katz, who serves on the board of the organization spearheading the secession drive. “It shows that there is an instinctive feeling among the voters ... that this would be a good idea.”

Because the proposal already has solid support in the San Fernando Valley and fairly high approval in the southern end of the city, a key battleground could be the middle swath of L.A., where voters expressed the most skepticism, said William Fulton, president of the Ventura-based Solimar Research Group, which specializes in urban planning issues.

“The important campaign is the Wilshire Boulevard campaign,” said Fulton, whose 1997 book “The Reluctant Metropolis” documents the rapid growth of the Los Angeles area.

“The mid-section of the city wants to stay together and the extremities want to secede.”

Raphael Sonenshein, a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton who follows regional politics, cautioned that support for secession could dwindle considerably by November.

So far, he said, most information that voters have received about a possible municipal breakup has been positive. By November, after a massive campaign about the possible negative impact of secession, that might change.

“I don’t think support is going to get a lot bigger,” Sonenshein said. “Everything out there is giving the impression that [seceding is] a pretty easy thing to do.”

Sonenshein and others said that secessionists must tap into existing frustration with the size and complexity of the city, and opponents must persuade people that secession would make things worse.