Harbor Secession Not Dead Yet

Even as Mayor James K. Hahn made an impassioned argument against breaking up Los Angeles, the commission studying secession said Wednesday it might revive a plan to split the harbor area off from the city, a proposal considered all but dead last week.

The Local Agency Formation Commission agreed to examine new financial figures that secessionists contend will show a harbor city would be fiscally sound. On Saturday, LAFCO’s executive officer had said such a city would not be able to pay its bills.

The commission’s action Wednesday was a snub to Hahn, who told the panel that the current secession plans for the harbor, San Fernando Valley and Hollywood would result in “financial ruin” for the proposed cities and the rest of Los Angeles.

Hahn invoked a state law that allows the commission to order a secession election only if the proposed city would be financially healthy--and its creation would not hurt the remainder of the old city. LAFCO is to decide during the next few weeks whether to place the harbor, Valley and Hollywood proposals on the November ballot.

The mayor has said that he favors a citywide vote on secession, providing the plans pass financial muster. On Wednesday, he stopped short of saying that Los Angeles would sue to prevent a secession election. But he did say that if the commissioners approve the proposals without revisions, it “would open them up to a suit.”

Hahn also asked the commission to consider a new report by city consultant Edward Hamilton that questions the financial analysis that LAFCO is using in its review of the secession plans.

But the commission ignored his request, and several members discounted the concerns that had been raised.

“You are being used right now,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the commission, told Hamilton.

Rather than study the issue further, Yaroslavsky said, “Let the people decide if we don’t know what we’re doing.”

Board member James DiGuiseppe agreed with Yaroslavsky and invoked the American Revolution. “We had an incident once called the Boston Tea Party,” he said.

LAFCO Executive Officer Larry Calemine issued a report last month that said the Valley would be in good financial shape if it withdrew from Los Angeles. A similar report is due out soon for Hollywood.

On Saturday, Calemine said flatly that the harbor would not be financially viable even “under the rosiest scenario.”

But he surprised the commissioners Wednesday by submitting a report showing that the harbor could survive on its own--as long as LAFCO forced Los Angeles to forgive a new city several million dollars in debt on city bonds.

That would make sense, Calemine said, because Los Angeles now provides services to the harbor area at a deficit, meaning the region is not producing enough tax revenue to contribute to the debt payments.

Calemine’s proposal infuriated representatives of Los Angeles.

“It’s like asking an accountant ‘What’s two plus two?’ and he pulls down the window shade and asks, ‘What do you want it to be?’” said Ron Deaton, the city’s chief legislative analyst.