Secession Campaigns Wind Down to Quiet Finish, Even in the Valley

On the final weekend day to reach voters before they cast ballots in Los Angeles’ secession campaigns, an odd silence settled across much of the city Sunday, with large areas untouched by the limited efforts mustered by those pressing for breakup.

In South-Central and East Los Angeles, a few secession advocates walked precincts, but they were far outnumbered by more than 700 anti-secession volunteers, many of them union members, striding door-to-door. At the Hollywood Farmers Market, secessionists tried, without much luck, to engage passersby in discussion.

San Fernando Valley secession leaders said they had no events planned for areas outside the Valley. “Why would we?” asked Karen Moran, a campaign spokeswoman.

And the breakup campaign’s Westside office was locked Sunday. Its leaders said they were occupied with other matters.

“I’m in the middle of a lawsuit. I’m working on another project today,” said Rex Frankel, a Westchester environmentalist. He added that he still supported breakup.

To claim victory Tuesday, secessionists must attract a majority of voters in the areas seeking independence, the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. But they also must prevail citywide, so the absence of a visible campaign outside the breakaway regions so close to election day could spell trouble.

A recent Times poll of 970 likely voters showed heavy opposition to both breakup proposals.

Their strategy, secession leaders say, is to draw enough Valley voters to tip the scales citywide.

But things were quiet Sunday, even in the Valley. After a series of earlier pro-cityhood events failed to attract large crowds, separatists decided not to hold a get-out-the-vote rally.

Instead, a cluster of die-hard workers made phone calls and handed out posters to volunteers at campaign headquarters in Sherman Oaks. A few precinct walkers also combed Valley streets seeking secession votes, although there was no large-scale effort to canvass neighborhoods.

“I’m here campaigning for Valley independence,” Chuck Betz, a retired accountant from Sherman Oaks, told one voter. “Hopefully you will consider voting for it on Tuesday.”

“Well, I think it would be kind of nice to have independence,” replied Jorja Brittain, a 56-year-old personal trainer. “Beverly Hills is its own city. I think we need to separate too, considering the size of the Valley.”

Hollywood separatists dispatched about 50 volunteers to walk neighborhoods outside the breakaway areas, said secession leader Gene La Pietra. The campaign also put out telephone calls with recorded messages to 100,000 households in the rest of Los Angeles.

“They are going to enjoy the same benefits we will have -- smaller government, more local control, a better sense of identity,” La Pietra said in an interview.

But it was slow going Sunday at the Hollywood Farmers Market, where both breakup supporters and opponents had tables loaded with campaign literature. Christian Dunlop, a paid pro-secession worker with shaggy hair and a pierced chin, tucked his campaign poster under his arm and got ready to leave after two dispiriting hours spent trying to drum up interest in the cause.

“Today it’s been pretty bad,” Dunlop said. “Nobody is interested in talking about this.”

Paul Merritt, a broker who is running for a seat on the proposed Hollywood city council, agreed that most people were “disengaged” from the secession debate.

“They smile, but they’re not enthusiastic,” he said.

That wasn’t the case with Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a secession opponent who revved up dozens of precinct walkers Sunday morning at the South-Central office of the African American Voter Registration, Education and Participation Project.

“We are going at them full-tilt,” Ridley-Thomas told the volunteers. The group has registered 22,000 new voters in black and Latino neighborhoods this year.

The volunteers headed out to tell voters that blacks and Latinos benefit from unionized jobs in city government. A split might jeopardize such jobs if the Valley decides to hire private service providers, Ridley-Thomas warned.

Secession leaders dispute that contention, saying they will honor all union contracts. But they are free to negotiate fresh agreements when the old ones expire, creating some uncertainty about the fate of city jobs in the future.

Robert Washington, a junior at Cal State Northridge, carried the anti-secession message door to door Sunday in a neighborhood just west of the Coliseum.

“It might be good for [the breakaway areas], but it’s bad for you,” he told one woman. “It would take away funds from our city.”

Secession leaders once touted South-Central and Westchester as strongholds of support. They assumed that both communities would desert City Hall out of anger -- over the loss of Police Chief Bernard Parks (in South-Central) and overdevelopment and expansion plans for Los Angeles International Airport (in Westchester).

But many ministers and most of the elected representatives of those areas, with the recent and conspicuous exception of Councilman Nate Holden, have come out strongly against secession.

In Westchester, secession backers did not even open their Westside headquarters until two weeks before the election. When they did, only about a dozen people showed up.

That shaky effort appeared to have virtually collapsed Sunday.

Frankel said the office was closed because “people are out in the neighborhoods and making phone calls.”

But neither Frankel nor Valley secession leaders could provide evidence showing where the volunteers were.

Another Westside secession leader, Denny Schneider, said he could not campaign because he was bedridden with six herniated disks. His main concern, he added, is preventing airport expansion.

Secession “is secondary,” Schneider said.

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Times staff writers Kristina Sauerwein and Sharon Bernstein contributed to this report.