New Alliance Rises to Fight Secession

Los Angeles City Council members have joined prominent local lobbyists, the city’s police union and a leading developer in the fight against secession--raising ethics concerns and long-term implications for governing the city.

The partnership, known as the Public Safety Coalition, is the latest campaign committee to oppose secession by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

A majority of the council’s five-member Public Safety Committee--Chairwoman Cindy Miscikowski and Council members Jan Perry and Jack Weiss--have teamed up with the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents LAPD officers. Together, they helped host a $500-per-person fund-raiser Monday night at the Toluca Lake home of developer Ed Roski Jr.

There are grass-roots efforts on both sides of the secession debate as well, but the fusion of public officials and private interests against the proposed breakup has helped shape the discussion. Secession critics say the coalition reflects the breadth of their campaign to defeat the measures Nov. 5, but advocates of Valley and Hollywood cityhood say the link between City Hall and special interests is precisely what they aim to break.

They contend that the deals cut in order to defeat secession will put local leaders in debt to the lobbyists, union leaders and developers who helped them win.

Richard Katz, head of the campaign committee supporting Valley secession, said the lobbyists raising money for the coalition represent significant special interests.

“These are the exact same people who run L.A.,” Katz said. “These people are in there for the long haul. They are protecting their investment in City Hall.”

To raise money needed to open a new front in the campaign against secession, members of the Public Safety Coalition gathered Monday in hopes of collecting $100,000 for mailings targeting Valley voters. Miscikowski, Perry, Weiss and Councilman Tom LaBonge were listed as special guests. Reporters were not allowed to attend.

Weiss said the coalition is an important part of the effort to defeat Hollywood and Valley cityhood measures. He said he hopes the money it raises “carries the message to Valley voters” that secession would be bad for public safety.

Katz disagreed and said the guest list “reads like a City Hall power elite field trip to the Valley.”

Records show that Roski’s development firm, Majestic Realty Co., is the largest single donor to L.A. United, Mayor James K. Hahn’s campaign to oppose secession.

Fran Inman, a senior vice president of Majestic, said Roski is actively involved in the fight against secession because he lives in the Valley and loves Los Angeles.

“He thinks we belong together. The city just needs to stay together to remain a leading city in the world,” she said.

Roski also believes that uncertainty about the city’s future created by the secession movement is bad for business, Inman said. She added that Roski therefore believes it is important from a business perspective to defeat the secession effort in both the Valley and the entire city.

To pass, Proposition F in the Valley and Proposition H in Hollywood must get a majority vote in both the breakaway region and in Los Angeles as a whole.

“If it passes in the Valley and doesn’t in the rest of the city, the dysfunction is still going to be obvious,” Inman said.

Although Roski is participating in the secession debate, he continues to have other interests in the workings of city government.

He is part of a team that wants to build a mega-entertainment, hotel and retail complex next to downtown’s Staples Center. He’s also one of the names behind a dormant proposal to build a football stadium downtown.

To accomplish his development plans, Roski needs the help of the City Council, which can authorize public money for those projects and assist with assembling land.

Lobbyist Steven Afriat, a political consultant tapped by Miscikowski to spearhead the coalition’s campaign against secession, also has business before the council. He represents, for instance, companies that receive a share of the Police Department’s towing contracts and lobbies on growth and development issues.

The host committee for the fund-raiser includes other City Hall regulars, each with an interest in decisions by the mayor and council:

* Arnie Berghoff is a lobbyist for Sunshine Canyon dump operator Browning Ferris Industries. The expansion of the dump has long been a source of irritation in the Valley, where some residents believe City Hall ignored their concerns.

* Julie Butcher is general manager of Service Employees International Union Local 347, the largest city employee union.

* William Delvac is an attorney who helped Roski get millions of dollars in public subsidies to build Staples Center and assisted in negotiations over building a football stadium downtown.

* Maureen Kindel and George Mihlsten are successful lobbyists. Kindel was active in the city’s debate over forcing cable companies to open their lines to Internet service providers. Mihlsten has represented Roski and fellow Staples Center developer Philip Anschutz.

* Fabian Nunez, a Democratic candidate for the Assembly, was a lobbyist for Los Angeles Unified School District and past political director of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. In addition to running for office, he is campaigning for passage of a school construction bond measure that will appear on the November ballot.

* Lobbyist Ken Spiker Jr. is the billboard industry’s chief lobbyist at City Hall.

* And Howard Sunkin, a well-known lobbyist for Cerrell & Associates, represents numerous clients, including Adelphia cable television and billboard interests.

The coalition is only the latest of secession opponents with roots at City Hall. Besides the mayor, Council President Alex Padilla and Councilmen Nick Pacheco, Eric Garcetti and LaBonge have established committees.

Miscikowski said the Public Safety Coalition grew out of previous efforts to promote bond issues to build fire and police stations.

The councilwoman, whose district until recently included parts of the San Fernando Valley, said she opposes secession because the Valley “just can’t get the same or better services for less money.” If secession passes, the only alternative will be to cut services, she said.

Miscikowski said coalitions are an important part of the political process. Just because some lobbyists are helping council members try to defeat secession does not mean that the current alliance would color future decisions, she said.

Weiss agreed, saying he makes decisions based on an issue’s merits, not on lobbyists and campaign contributions.

If the Valley secedes, Weiss said, the new city would have few options for police protection--to start its own force from scratch or contract with the LAPD or Sheriff’s Department for services.

Valley voters need to know that “when it comes to public safety, bigger is better,” Weiss said. Remaining a part of Los Angeles offers the Valley the best protection in the event of an earthquake, a North Hollywood shootout or a terrorist act, he said.

Although Weiss and other council members defended the alliance between elected officials and leading lobbyists, others have questioned whether that relationship is appropriate.

“How is the public supposed to ignore the fact that such large amounts of money” are being raised by lobbyists, asked LeeAnn Pelham, the executive director of the city’s Ethics Commission. “Lobbyists have a stranglehold on the money,” she said.

Meanwhile, the council has been unwilling to act on the Ethics Commission’s proposals to restrict the ability of council members to vote on issues involving lobbyists who double as political consultants for the same officials, she added.

She urged the council to take swift action to enact the reforms in order to establish “an arm’s length distance between money and governmental action.”

Afriat opposes the commission proposals to restrict the ability of lobbyists to run campaigns. He said “it’s just ridiculous” to assume that “because somebody pays us, then they owe us something.”

Likewise, he said, it’s simplistic to presume that when people contribute to a cause like opposing secession that they do so only because of their future business interests.

“People who do business with the city of L.A., who have relationships with the city of L.A., are, of course, going to respond” to anti-secession fund-raising appeals, he said.

Roski’s campaign contributions are not the reason he was successful in winning approval for creation of an entertainment district next to Staples Center, Afriat said.

“Mr. Roski did well before the City Council because he built a beautiful [arena] in downtown Los Angeles,” Afriat said.

Speaking for the secession effort, Katz cast the matter in different terms.

He said the downtown stadium issue is not dead but merely hibernating until after the election. And he predicted that once the election is over “you’ll see a football stadium, a redevelopment area and the question of public subsidies has been bought and paid for by special interest money.”