Secession, Spending, ‘Living Wage’ Among Ballot Issues

Los Angeles voters face a historic choice Nov. 5: whether to break apart the nation’s second-largest city and create an independent San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

Residents throughout Los Angeles County, meanwhile, will be asked to decide the fate of several measures seeking millions of dollars for an array of educational, cultural and medical institutions.

Measure A would fund safety upgrades at aging county museums; another proposal, Measure B, would help maintain the county’s troubled network of hospital emergency rooms. To pass, both proposals need approval by two-thirds of county voters.

Measure K, a $3.3-billion construction bond, would help the swelling Los Angeles Unified School District build new schools and renovate old ones. It requires a 55% majority vote.

And in Santa Monica, voters will weigh in on a ballot initiative to increase the pay for employees who work primarily for luxury hotels along the beach. The so-called living wage ordinance is being closely watched nationwide because it would be the first of its kind to regulate wages paid by private employers who are not operating on city property or under city contract.

In the Valley, secessionists struggled for six years to push what became Measure F onto the ballot. Their unlikely campaign overcame many hurdles -- changing state law to allow citywide secession votes and collecting thousands of signatures to force a $2-million study of the breakup’s financial impact -- but the biggest obstacle lies ahead.

To win, secessionists need to claim a majority of voters citywide and in the Valley. A recent Times poll shows that Los Angeles’ likely voters oppose a breakup by 2 to 1. The secession proposal was trailing even in the Valley, 47% to 42%, a gap within the poll’s margin of error.

Hollywood secession has also failed to attract widespread support, according to the poll. Only 21% of likely voters citywide favor Measure H, while 60% oppose it. “Most of us feel that it’s going down to defeat ... but the issue is not going to go away,” said Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

“The fact that there has been a pro-secession campaign, even though it hasn’t been very well run, nevertheless created a new level of respect,” he said. Secessionists “have made a credible case that there has been a disconnect between a good part of some communities and the structure of their government.”

If approved by voters, the new Valley city would be born July 1. With 1.35 million people and 222 square miles, it would be bigger than Phoenix, San Diego and Dallas.

The Valley would be governed by an elected mayor and 14 council members. Voters who live in the Valley will be asked to choose those leaders as well as a new name for the proposed city.

For at least its first year of independence, the Valley would remain closely bound to the city it left, relying on Los Angeles for virtually every municipal service. The Valley city would have a $1.2-million budget -- and most of it would go to paying L.A. for police and fire protection, garbage pickup, park maintenance and other services.

Eventually, however, the fledgling city could set up its own departments or contract with Los Angeles County or private vendors to provide services.

Fiscal Impact of a Split

Because state law requires that municipal breakups be “revenue neutral” -- in other words, they can’t financially harm either the new city or the one left behind -- the Local Agency Formation Commission had to calculate secession’s fiscal impact.

LAFCO found that Los Angeles collects $127.1 million more from Valley taxpayers each year than it gives back in city services, bolstering secessionists’ belief that the Valley isn’t getting its fair share.

The remedy, however, would be for the Valley to pay that amount to Los Angeles after a breakup to compensate L.A. for the loss. The so-called alimony payment would drop 5% annually over 20 years.

The Valley city would keep all police stations, libraries and other assets within its boundaries. LAFCO also decided that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power would provide utilities to the Valley at the same rates it charges L.A. customers. But Los Angeles officials argue that LAFCO doesn’t have the authority to enforce such a mandate and suggest that the matter could wind up in court.

Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, would lose a third of its residents and nearly half its land in the breakup to become the third-largest city, behind New York and Chicago.

The city would have to redraw its council districts and hold new elections. But since Los Angeles would retain control of its water and power systems, airports and other assets, most residents would probably detect few immediate changes.

In the long term, however, the city would face the loss of substantial tax revenue. After 20 years, Los Angeles would no longer collect the Valley’s alimony payment. Secession opponents contend that a breakup could also cost thousands of city employees their jobs.

The bid for Hollywood secession piggybacked on the Valley movement’s advances -- with the help of a rich nightclub owner who wants to become Hollywood’s first mayor.

Unlike the Valley effort, which was fueled by years of hard work and donations from hundreds of Valley residents, the Hollywood campaign is largely the brainchild of one man: Gene La Pietra, owner of the popular gay clubs Arena Cafe and Circus Disco on Santa Monica Boulevard.

La Pietra has contributed more than $2 million so far toward Hollywood independence, including about $700,000 to get the measure on the ballot.

Secession backers say the new cities would trim the fat from local government, making police, fire, sanitation and other services more efficient and responsive. Council districts would be smaller, theoretically giving residents a louder voice at City Hall.

Opponents -- a well-funded coalition of business moguls, union members, politicians and lobbyists -- argue that a breakup could endanger public safety and hurt city finances. They emphasize secession’s many uncertainties, pointing out that there are no long-term guarantees about how the new cities would handle everything from rent control to disaster response.

Secession would have no impact on the Los Angeles Unified School District. But separatists say a new Valley city would have so much clout that, down the road, it could push for a school district breakup.

Although secession would leave L.A. Unified untouched, the November ballot includes two bond measures that would help the overcrowded district build more schools.

Bonds for Schools

The construction bonds -- a $13-billion statewide measure and a separate $3.3-billion proposal for L.A. Unified -- would fund new university and kindergarten-through-12th-grade school buildings, expansions and renovations. Passage of the state bond measure, Proposition 47, requires a simple majority, while the local bond item, Measure K, needs a 55% vote.

Like many local districts around the state, L.A. Unified plans to match potential funds from the state bond with local bond proceeds. The money would help finish building 80 new campuses and 79 expansions begun with funds from previous school bond issues. It would also start 40 new school projects to ease overcrowding and get students off buses and into neighborhood schools.

If the local bond measure passes, it will raise annual property taxes within the district by about $60 per $100,000 of assessed value. For an owner of a $250,000 house, that means $150 a year for 30 years.

Residents throughout the county will be asked to vote on two other funding measures. Measure A would pay for earthquake and fire safety improvements at county-owned science and cultural institutions, including the Natural History Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with a blend of private and public dollars.

It would allow the county to issue $250 million in bonds to fund upgrades at eight locations -- but only if another $250 million were raised first through private donations.

The measure would also help build new projects such as a cultural arts complex in El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic district and a performing arts center at Cal State Northridge. It would cost the owner of a $250,000 home an estimated $6.96 the first year and $6.04 the second. That amount would continue to decline if real estate assessments increased.

Measure B is aimed at shoring up the county’s shrinking network of hospital emergency rooms. It would levy a parcel tax of 3 cents per square foot on homes, office buildings and other developed properties.

The $168 million raised would help fund county trauma centers, emergency medical services and bioterrorism response.

County officials estimate that the tax would cost the owner of an average 1,400-square-foot home $42.66 annually.

In Santa Monica, meanwhile, voters will consider a groundbreaking living wage law that would boost the pay of housekeepers, busboys and other low-wage workers who are concentrated in the luxury hotels in the city’s booming coastal tourism zone.

Under the ordinance, businesses with more than $5 million in annual sales would have to pay workers at least $10.50 an hour with health benefits or $12.25 without. That would provide enough money for a family of four to get off food stamps, proponents say.

After years of debate, the City Council passed the ordinance last year. But it never took effect; opponents collected enough signatures to force a voter referendum on the issue. The initiative, Measure JJ, asks voters to decide whether they want the law enacted.

Opponents say the measure would chill the business climate. Posh hotels along the coast have spent about $1.8 million over the last three years to defeat the ordinance.

But religious and community leaders and more than 100 labor economists across the nation have voiced support for Measure JJ, saying it would provide significant benefits for workers without imposing an undue burden on businesses.

*

Times staff writers Solomon Moore, Daren Briscoe and Martha Groves contributed to this report.