It was not turning out to be a very good week for secessionists. The hired guns who’ve been working with our friends at the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and Valley VOTE organizers spent four days doing damage control last week following the Oct. 5 release of the highly anticipated Draft Fiscal Analysis. The report, by nearly all accounts, appeared at first glance to blow a hole through secessionists’ plans for declaring genuine independence from Los Angeles. Oh, it supported the notion of a fiscally viable new Valley city all right, but a city that would likely continue to contract for nearly every asset it now has a stake in, with the exception of its city streets potholes and all. Every media outlet in Los Angeles that cares enough about secession to report on it all but rang the death knell for the cause in their subsequent coverage. City officials called the report confusing and said it did not offer enough information to warrant asking voters to take it seriously. Even secessionists called it disappointing and said revisions would have to follow. And then last Thursday, the whole darn cityhood thing went public. The very first official public hearing on secession was not a packed house. There were, by my count, about 240 people in the room at the meeting’s peak, including aides to Mayor James Hahn and Council President Alex Padilla, who were also in attendance briefly and we’ll return to them in a moment. And with the exception of a few “boos” for a certain anti-secessionist city councilwoman/LAFCO board member (you connect the dots), it was a relatively subdued bunch. They came to Los Angeles Valley College’s Monarch Hall for the first of six planned public meetings on the report with LAFCO board members at the helm. This was the first opportunity for the people who live in the Valley to express in three minutes or less their views on secession, the latest report and what should come next. And it was a beautiful opportunity for those city officials opposed to a breakup to hear first hand what residents here really think about the idea and what they would like to see offered as an alternative. But, unfortunately, civic protocol enticed LAFCO Executive Director Larry J. Calemine to take anti-secessionists Hahn and Padilla out of order and give them the first two spots at the podium, where both rattled off speeches about “taking the lazy way out” and destroying hopes and dreams. So, by about 8 p.m., when the first of 29 public speakers got their chance to unload, as far as I could see through my pizza high at the end of a long day, neither Padilla nor Hahn were anywhere to be found. Some would argue the two have busy schedules and perhaps anticipated only hearing more of the same: a breakup would give us more local control; better access to our city leaders; quicker response times from our city’s ambulance, police and fire units; and, yes, even better public swimming pools, which Padilla made reference to as a way of calling up memories of his childhood days in Pacoima. What they missed, however, was a very public display of tangible evidence that, despite its seemingly tame outreach efforts and reputation for being nothing more than a group of kooks with little political power, Valley VOTE is just getting started. Only one of the 9,000 members of the Service Employees Union Local 347 filled out a speaker card Thursday, which was surprising because, not only did the union provide the pizza and bottled water, they have been, to date, some of the most outspoken opponents of a Valley split. Outside, on a break, I met Sam Stevens, a Valley resident who has just launched “One Los Angeles,” an anti-secession group that she said will work to sway voters to join the “No” camp. Welcome to the Valley, Sam. “We always just kind of figured that this whole secession thing was nothing to really pay attention to,” said Stevens. “Now, we think it looks like the time has come.” In short, the bad week may have allowed Valley VOTE and pro-secessionists to turn a corner. Someone besides Jeff Brain and Richard Close, the group’s two key leaders, got a chance to voice their views in an open forum. And, had Hahn and Padilla stuck around, they would have heard something else too: An eloquently delivered three-minute speech that blew Padilla’s own remarks about his district not being in favor of secession and the issue not being a huge community concern right out of the water. Jose “Roy” Garcia is a resident of Padilla’s own northeast Valley district. “We want to hear more about this,” said Garcia, who said he would favor a breakup. “But nobody from the city has ever come to my door to explain it and the people need to be thinking about this. But if they don’t know about me, how are they going to know about the rest of us in Pacoima, Van Nuys, and Sylmar?” Good point Mr. Garcia. So is his final comment: “Don’t forget my name. It’s Jose “Roy” Garcia.” Staff reporter Jacqueline Fox can be reached at [email protected].
