Levine Says Anti-Breakup Flier Is His, Not One L.A.’s Politics by Jacqueline Fox Larry Levine, head of One Los Angeles, has beefed up his anti-secession campaign with a series of fliers, sent primarily to the press, which he unabashedly calls “hit pieces” aimed at, well, “just giving people something to think about,” or so he says. The series of (so far, three) fliers entitled “Distortions, Deceptions, Fabrications and Fairy Tales” asks recipients to reflect on statements and figures propounded by secessionists and released in a report on the new Valley city’s viability by LAFCO and officially approved in June. Levine asks recipients to decide if statements and other facts are “distortions, deceptions, fabrications, fairy tales, outright lies or other.” For example, in the third of the series he states that the Valley represents 36.53 percent of the population of Los Angeles, and then points out that the Valley’s contribution to the city’s general fund is 30.57 percent. The implication, said Levine, is that secessionists’ primary battle cry, that the city charges the Valley more for services than it actually provides is a, oh, I’ll pick “fabrication.” The fliers, however, do not carry the “One Los Angeles” logo. Instead, they come with Levine’s own company name, Larry Levine & Associates, stamped in bold across the top. When asked why the fliers did not make reference to One Los Angeles, Levine said he simply wanted to send out little tidbits of information he’d “stumbled across.” “It’s guerilla warfare,” said Levine. “If I wanted to send them out on the (One Los Angeles) letterhead, I’d have to check with everyone on the committee and jump through a whole bunch of hoops. I don’t have time for that.” Levine also questions why LAFCO’s prescribed alimony payment to the city of Los Angeles was boosted at the last minute from $57.5 million to $128 million. He suggests that somebody likely had the larger amount in mind all along but kept it out of the LAFCO report until the last minute because it proved the new city would be starting off with more debt than initially thought. But when questioned about the payments, which secessionists say represent the difference between what the Valley now pays the city for services and what it actually gets, he said the numbers were just “simply that easy to manipulate.” “What I’m saying is, if they (secessionists) want to play with numbers, you can make them do what ever you want them to,” Levine said. Another of Levine’s tidbits is that 57 percent of the city’s public golf courses are in the Valley, suggesting that those represent just one asset the Valley has a monopoly on relative to folks south of Mullholland Drive. Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close said he hadn’t received any of the fliers and suggested that they were “probably not very credible,” particularly if Levine is sending them out on his own letterhead instead of under the One Los Angeles moniker. “I suspect the press is just trashing them,” Close said. “I haven’t seen them, but I’d like to because it sounds like they are just a veiled attempt to distort facts. Otherwise, why not make them official.” Horse Country A small contingent of homeowners in Chatsworth fighting a proposed housing development known as Deerlake Ranch have won the backing of County Supervisor Michael Antonovich in their battle to control the size of the planned housing lots. Allen Glazer, president of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce and a member of Save Chatsworth, said Antonovich’s backing gives the newly formed group political clout and could stave off an upcoming decision by the city’s planning commission to move forward on the project. At issue is a planned housing development by San Francisco-based Presidio calling for between 424 and 480 homes on roughly 200 acres at the far north end of Canoga Avenue above the 118 Freeway. Save Chatsworth, comprised primarily of long-time horse owners with large lots, wants Presidio to increase its projected lot sizes of between 6,000 and 15,000 square feet. Instead of a mix of lot sizes, Antonovich and the group are asking Presidio to make all the lots a minimum of 15,000 square feet so that if buyers want to own horses they too can do so. “This is about density,” said Glazer. “We just want to make sure that this project is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. We don’t want to see a development that’s just a bunch of houses on top of houses. We have no problem with the development. We just hope the developer is going to understand that.” The group is also concerned with the impact of traffic. They say the project will result in between 5,000 and 10,000 more trips a day, threatening to jam the entryway to the woodland area. Save Chatsworth, certified in July by the county to raise funds, has about 30 members and has raised close to $9,000 in the last two weeks, according to its treasurer, Jan Evanson. The DeerLake Ranch issue has been a thorn in the side of residents of the area for several years, according to Evanson, and is the driving force behind the group’s other interest: secession. She said most in the group and the area hope voters pass the secession initiative in November because, she said, they believe a smaller government would be more sympathetic to their cause. “We’re talking about local control, so of course we support secession,” Evanson said. “We have not been fairly listened to by the city and we think a local governmental body would do a better job of letting us have our say.” The Money Issue The Valley Independence Committee, the key group heading the secession movement, is forming a separate arm to focus solely on raising funds for the Valley secession campaign. The upcoming creation of a finance committee marks the group’s first significant step toward raising cash to combat Mayor James Hahn’s anti-secession campaign, which he has vowed will have a $5 million war chest of its own. The committee will focus on large businesses in the Valley, but also target philanthropic groups and others with deep pockets that have either come out in favor of a breakup or may be persuaded to do so. The names of the committee members were not released at press time. Jacqueline Fox is politics reporter for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. She can be reached at [email protected].