Inside Baseball Over Breakup Terminology Too Late Commentary: From The Newsroom by Michael Hart Does the San Fernando Valley want to “secede”? Would it rather have “cityhood”? Or does it just want to help itself and its neighbors to the south “specially reorganize”? The question in some circles is apparently not whether to be or not to be, but how to frame the question, skirting dangerously close to the Clintonian debate on what you mean by “is.” There is a little inside baseball going on among what I will for the moment continue to call secession advocates that is interesting. However, the fact that such an issue is still being debated with such passion so close to what should be the inauguration of a massive election campaign does not sound good for secession I mean, special reorganization fans. Here’s the deal: Some people interested in having the San Fernando Valley become its own city have begun to express reservations about what has been known as secession. They note the state legislation that pulled the trigger on the whole business a couple of years ago defined the process as a special reorganization. They make the argument that the Valley is not trying to break away from Los Angeles as much as it is trying to reorganize one city into two. Bob Scott of the Civic Center Group went so far as to say in a widely distributed e-mail last week of the term secession that “some in the minority community even hear it in the unflattering context of the Civil War.” Scott’s much cc’ed e-mail was addressed to Ken Bernstein of The Civic Forum, a group of business and community leaders who have joined together in hopes of providing a middle ground from which objective information about a potential breakup could be disseminated and discussed. Scott makes a good case that established vernacular and old habits that are hard to break notwithstanding anything along the lines of special reorganization or even cityhood would be preferable to secession when it comes to describing what is going on. Among those cc’ed was Jeff Brain of Valley VOTE who, as might be expected, went a little further down this trail by advising Bernstein, “If you are to be a neutral facilitator of information on this issue, then the term ‘Special Reorganization’ is the term you will use.” So, there. Bernstein, exercising great common sense, said all this is logical but the fact is that secession is what the public has come to call it and something as bureaucratic-sounding as special reorganization would just confuse people. What’s more, he pointed out, the term cityhood is likely to elicit as many negative reactions from opponents as secession does from the advocates of whatever it is. As a longtime copy editor, let me parenthetically suggest that, before any of you wannabe headline writers go crazy over the idea, just try to cram the eight-syllable “special reorganization” into the space you’ve grown accustomed to fitting the three-syllable “secession” into. All this terminology debate is interesting enough, particularly since you even get the chance to consider how many of our neighbors here in the Valley are drawing parallels to the Civil War. It’s also just one more show in a many-ringed circus: There’s the ongoing tussle over who can come up with the most accurate potential first-year budget for a new city. The estimates alternately tossed out by the city and Valley VOTE are so far apart, it’s hard to trust either one right now. There’s the ancillary debate over how many Los Angeles City Council districts the Valley should get (enough to make the Valley happy about sticking with the status quo, but not enough to insult the rest of L.A.). There’s the squabble (which only seems like it’s gone on forever) about which municipal assets should belong to whom by when. The Daily News even had a contest to pick a new name. Add the debate over whether you’re hopping on the secession bandwagon or the cityhood train, and there’s an issue for everyone. However, regardless of how any of these various little issues are resolved, sooner or later LAFCO probably is going to say, yes, you get to decide on Tuesday, Nov. 5. And then, suddenly, the fun and games stop and a few other questions become more intriguing: – Who out there is raising the millions of dollars needed for the kind of high-profile election campaign Southern Californians are used to? Knowing that it isn’t just Valley voters who’ve got to be convinced, a full-fledged media onslaught that will reach every citizen of Los Angeles is going to be necessary. Mayor Jim Hahn has pledged to raise $5 million for the opposition; who’s doing as much on this side of the hill? – Under the circumstances and regardless of what the latest polls might say, convincing the Valley this is a good idea will be a comparative cinch; people here have had decades to build up their resentment. But how do you tell the other two-thirds of L.A. that smaller government is good for them too? If it took this long to develop critical momentum in the Valley, will 10 months be enough for the rest of the city? – Finally, and perhaps the question many have been afraid to ask: Who are the political leaders that will answer the call once an election campaign begins? Those with the highest profiles in the secession/special reorganization movement in recent years David Fleming, Richard Close, Jeff Brain all say that is for somebody else besides them. But who? The Valley’s two most popular politicians at the moment, Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and City Council President Alex Padilla, have announced they’re working for the other side. So who’s in charge? And what are they doing? No more inside baseball, it’s time for the serious politics to begin. Michael Hart is editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
