Harbor Area Bid to Secede Shaken

The harbor region of Los Angeles would not survive financially if it split off from the rest of the city, a state analysis concluded Saturday, dealing a major setback to those who hope to place a secession proposal for the area on the November ballot.

The executive officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission, who has backed the breakaway movement by the San Fernando Valley, determined that a harbor area city, population 145,000, would immediately be saddled by budget deficits, and recommended that a secession election for the waterfront area not be held.

By state law, the commission cannot authorize a secession vote for a region that would not be financially sound on its own.

LAFCO is set to decide next month whether to place the harbor cityhood proposal on the ballot. Commissioners on Saturday did not rule out finding a way to hold a harbor election, but the negative conclusions reached by LAFCO Executive Director Larry Calemine will make that task difficult.

“If LAFCO follows the law, I do not see how it could put harbor secession on the ballot,” said Mayor James K. Hahn, who is leading the fight against secession.

“The new LAFCO study confirms what I have said from the beginning: Harbor secession is bad for harbor residents and the rest of the city,” the mayor said.

Hahn, who lives in San Pedro, added: “Secession of any part of the city is too expensive and too risky.”

But Andrew Mardesich, who heads the harbor secession movement, said he will challenge Calemine’s numbers before the commission.

“I’m looking at this in disbelief,” Mardesich said of the report. “It’s not over yet.... This is the ninth round of a 10-round fight.”

Saturday’s report undermines an important element of the three-front secession drive that began five years ago and has drawn increasing attention in recent months.

LAFCO also is considering placing secession proposals for the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood on the November ballot.

Secessionists believe that each proposal would get more votes if all three breakaway bids appeared on the same ballot.

To win, a cityhood measure must carry a majority of votes within the secession area and a majority of Los Angeles as a whole.

If the harbor proposal dies, some observers and anti-secessionists say, fewer cityhood proponents in that area will go to the polls in November and vote for a Valley or Hollywood measure.

“I think, overall, it helps the city stay together,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, a secession opponent who has offered as an alternative to municipal breakup the creation of a borough system in some ways resembling that of New York City. “In my opinion, harbor area people would have less to get out and vote for.”

Breakup advocates, however, say that if harbor voters are denied the opportunity to create their own city, they might cast ballots in favor of Valley or Hollywood secession as a form of protest.

“If that kind of injustice occurs, the people in the harbor will be madder than hell and would come together to help us get the votes,” said Gene La Pietra, a founder of the Hollywood secession movement.

The three secession proposals grew out of petition drives that collected the signatures of 25% of the voters in each area.

Together, the efforts have tested Los Angeles’ sense of itself, pitting those who see the city as too big to be manageable against the city’s political leadership and others who worry about the social and political consequences of a breakup.

The Valley is by far the largest region seeking to leave, with a population of 1.35 million. The Hollywood area is home to about 200,000.

From the beginnings of the secession campaigns, the harbor’s financial viability has been deemed the most problematic.

A waterfront city would have a $7.5-million deficit during its first six months, with a budget of about $100 million, according to Calemine’s report. Under the rosiest scenario, a harbor city would be $4 million in debt by the end of its second year.

Earlier this year, an initial LAFCO analysis of the harbor’s finances indicated that a new municipality would start in the red unless it significantly cut services or boosted taxes. A later report by state Controller Kathleen Connell went even further, flatly stating that the area would not be financially viable as a city.

Decision on Port Was Another Blow

The harbor proposal was further damaged by a State Lands Commission decision last month to remove the Port of Los Angeles from the secession area’s boundaries. That denied the proposed city about $18 million in annual revenue.

By analyzing new budget figures submitted by Mardesich, LAFCO planners found that a harbor city could indeed reduce expenditures, saving about $21 million a year by modeling itself after small to mid-size cities instead of Los Angeles.

If the city contracted with Los Angeles County--rather than the city of Los Angeles--for services such as police, fire protection, libraries and animal control, for example, the budget gap would be only about $6 million a year, the Calemine report said.

But for the first six months of its existence, the new city would have to buy those services from Los Angeles to avoid disruption. And that would put it $7.5 million in the red right out of the box.

Even after that, the $6-million annual deficit would be difficult to close, the report said.

One possibility, the report suggested, would be for a harbor city to borrow funds from Los Angeles to cover the first year’s deficits. But that would provide only enough money to fund a reserve of $157,000 the first year.

“Under no scenario ... did the executive officer find that the proposed city could generate reasonable reserves during its first three years,” Calemine wrote.

Himself a former pro-secession activist, Calemine said he worked hard to salvage the harbor proposal, redoing the commission’s fiscal analysis at the last minute to accommodate fresh numbers submitted by secessionists.

“If it’s possible or practical, we’d like to put it on the ballot,” said LAFCO Chairman Henri Pellissier. He said he needed a day to read the report before discussing its details.

“He may have left us some openings,” Pellissier said of Calemine.

Sentiments behind the harbor secession drive date back decades. San Pedro and Wilmington, settled by generations of Italian, Slavic and Latino immigrants, were once their own cities, joining Los Angeles in 1909.

Los Angeles, hungry for the region’s port, had promised better services for the fishing community, a new highway and harbor improvements.

Today, the area’s proximity to the Port of Los Angeles means that it grapples with pollution, and residents do not have a nearby shopping mall. Cities depend heavily on property, sales and business tax revenues to pay their bills.

The area’s relative geographical isolation only adds to the sense of alienation from the rest of the city. The harbor is connected to Los Angeles by a slim, rat’s tail of city land annexed to ensure that the harbor was physically attached to Los Angeles.

San Pedro is one of the oldest communities in the state.

With decisions affecting their lives being made 26 miles to the north in Los Angeles City Hall, many people in the working-class port communities have been disappointed with elected officials’ responses to local concerns about open space, air pollution, congestion and truck traffic.

If harbor cityhood doesn’t make the ballot, said secessionist Noel Park, “We are doomed.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a LAFCO commissioner who has not taken a position on secession, said she understands the frustrations of harbor residents.

“The fact that it’s so isolated and it’s connected by just a little strip makes really a very strong argument for secession,” she said. “But I don’t know how you can make it if you don’t have any money.”