Secessionists Weigh Options

Hours after their hopes of forging a separate city from Los Angeles died at the polls, San Fernando Valley secessionists grasped onto a silver lining Wednesday in the slender margin of yes votes cast by Valley voters.

Los Angeles voters rejected both Valley and Hollywood breakup proposals by resounding margins in Tuesday’s election. But in the Valley, the secession movement’s birthplace and enduring stronghold, voters were almost evenly split.

With all precincts reporting, the secession proposal was hugging a narrow lead -- 50.77% to 49.23% -- in the Valley. The difference is 3,760 votes, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder.

About 31,500 absentee and provisional ballots from the Valley remain to be counted. To alter the Valley outcome, about 56% of the outstanding ballots would have to go against secession.

The breakup plan carried the Valley in Tuesday’s returns even though it lost in three of the region’s five council districts -- the 2nd, 6th and 7th, all in the East Valley, according to a breakdown released by the county. The vote totals against secession in the three districts ranged from 53.7% to 57.6%

Secession leaders had predicted they would get broad support in the East Valley.

The strongest opposition to secession was in South-Central Los Angeles. In the 8th Council District there, 89.8% of voters cast ballots against secession. More than 82% of the voters in the two East Los Angeles council districts also opposed secession.

Valley secession leader Jeff Brain said he was not surprised by those results because unions and council members focused heavily on persuading Latino and African American voters there to oppose the breakup.

“Without money to educate people there, what they said stuck,” Brain said.

Secession did best in the West Valley, the birthplace of the movement.

In the northwest Valley’s 12th Council District, which includes Northridge, Granada Hills and Chatsworth, 61% of voters supported secession, the largest percentage citywide. Hal Bernson represents the district.

The southwest Valley’s 3rd District, represented by Dennis Zine, posted the second-highest return for secession -- 56.8%.

Meanwhile, the council districts that include San Pedro, which is also proposing secession, and Hollywood voted against the breakup.

The win in the Valley is a hollow victory at best: Under California law, secessions must pass citywide. But the split decision somewhat strengthens the political hand of separatists who have long argued that City Hall neglects the Valley while sponging up its tax dollars.

As the day after the election dawned clear and sunny over the Valley, secession leaders hailed the Valley vote as evidence that their grass-roots campaign -- or at least, its central goal of siphoning power away from City Hall -- was still alive.

“We were outspent, outgunned, outnumbered,” said Laurette Healey, a co-chair of the San Fernando Valley Independence Committee. “We came to the people with a simple truth, the truth of bringing government closer to the people who live here.... The idea of local control will resonate for a very, very long time.”

In a sign that City Hall is absorbing the message, Council President Alex Padilla and other Valley council members plan to meet today with secession leaders to explore ways to devolve power across the city’s far-flung neighborhoods.

Looking bleary-eyed but cheerful, a cluster of Valley secessionists returned Wednesday morning to the same Sherman Oaks hotel where they had watched their dream of a new city die the night before.

Flanked by several of the would-be council members elected to represent the Valley had cityhood passed, leaders of the six-year breakaway movement vowed to keep up the pressure for local control.

“This is more than a government in exile,” said secession leader Richard Katz. “Given the unprecedented nature of the opposition we faced, the victory in the Valley is significant.... The burden now shifts to the city. We have made our case for reform.”

Voter turnout in the Valley was higher than in other parts of Los Angeles, but not by much. Citywide, 38.6% of voters cast ballots Tuesday, while in the Valley the figure was 43.5%. The Valley typically has a higher turnout than the rest of the city.

Mayor James K. Hahn and other breakup opponents spent $7 million to squash secession in its own backyard. Separatists took comfort in their slim Valley victory, saying that the Valley’s demand for more efficient, responsive government could not be denied.

What remains to be seen, breakup proponents said, is just what shape new reform efforts may take. A borough system, neighborhood councils with enhanced power, or another secession movement were all mentioned as possibilities.

Richard Close, chairman of the secession group Valley VOTE, said cityhood advocates were still exploring their options.

Close had previously threatened a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s rule that municipal breakups be put to a citywide vote, but on Wednesday, secession leaders said they were considering a broad range of possible next steps.

Other options, Close said, include trying to revise the state law to allow only Valley voters to decide whether to form a new city or sponsoring a statewide ballot initiative to liberate the Valley from Los Angeles.

In Hollywood, the millionaire nightclub owner who was the driving force behind that cityhood effort made it clear he was throwing in the towel.

Gene La Pietra, who spent $2.5 million on the secession campaign, canceled a post-election news conference, saying he needed to pick up his niece at school. But he, too, characterized the losing effort as “a victory” of sorts, saying it drew attention to Hollywood’s problems.

Several political observers said that the struggling secession movement’s best days may be behind it.

Citywide, voters snubbed Valley cityhood by a huge margin, about 67% to 33%. The Hollywood independence measure was even less popular, with 71% of voters opposing it.

“It really wasn’t much of a mandate, even if it wins in the Valley,” said Parke Skelton, a political strategist who helped guide anti-secession efforts for the County Federation of Labor. “I think people will be able to avoid taking any real dramatic steps to restructure city government.”

The shifting demographics of the Valley, which is tilting more Latino and Democratic, may also put a damper on future breakup efforts, political experts said. Valley cityhood claims its strongest base of support among what could be called the Valley’s old guard: white, affluent, Republican men.

“It’s possible that secession will never get onto the ballot again,” said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

Cain said that the breakup plan’s doom was sealed when state Sen. Richard Alarcon, a Sylmar Democrat sympathetic to Valley cityhood, decided not to run for Valley mayor and started campaigning against secession.

“It seems to me when Alarcon pulled out and the inner-city Latino community mobilized against this, a lot of the air went out of the balloon,” he said.

“But the issue won’t die if the issue is whether the San Fernando Valley gets equal treatment in terms of services or representation or respect,” he continued. “ ... In one way or another, the city’s going to have to address it, whether it’s with boroughs or some other way of decentralizing government.”

David Fleming, a prominent Valley lawyer and secession backer, said that boroughs deserve a closer look. Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) floated a borough proposal several months ago as an alternative to secession, but the City Council declined to put it on the ballot.

Either way, Fleming said, Hahn ignores the Valley’s dissatisfaction at his own peril.

“Half the Valley stood up last night and said, ‘We don’t want to be part of your city anymore.’ That’s got to scare any incumbent,” Fleming said. “Jim Hahn’s got a lot of fences to mend.”

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Times staff writer Sharon Bernstein contributed to this report.