Secession Foes Say Vote Is Still No Sure Bet The Secession Question By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter Opponents of a Valley breakup say they intend to take full advantage of the 30-day reconsideration period and challenge the recent decision to place a secession initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot. Proponents say they expect challenges but do not consider them a threat, even if they come in the form of lawsuits. The nuts and bolts for the framework of a new Valley city were finally approved in a historic 8-1 vote May 22 and compiled in a 29-page resolution by the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). That was the difficult part for LAFCO, the nine-member team of city and county officials that, after six years, finally gave Valley secessionists what they’ve spent decades fighting for: the chance to vote on the matter. Now begins a whole new phase of political, social and, some say, emotional wrangling certain to gather more and more steam as a June 26 deadline to challenge LAFCO’s ruling approaches. Proponents of a breakup can rest assured that, barring a petition challenge by 50 percent of the voters in the city, the resolution to carve up Los Angeles, as it stands today, isn’t likely to change, said LAFCO Executive Officer Larry Calemine. “This is it,” said Calemine, the day after an eight-hour marathon hearing that included heated exchanges between LAFCO members and Mayor James Hahn and testimony by some 30 residents, city officials and Valley business owners all before a battery of TV, radio and print media. Should the voters approve the initiative, the new city will get most of L.A.’s assets in the Valley, including police stations, libraries, parks and the Van Nuys Airport. It would also continue to own a stake in the Department of Water and Power and residents would be charged the same rates as those in other parts of Los Angeles. But there is a very strong possibility LAFCO will face legal challenges over its decision. Jeff Daar, co-founder of the anti-secessionist One Los Angeles, said his group would meet to discuss whether to file a suit or mount other sorts of challenges over the next week or two. No matter what, he said, his group would continue to press LAFCO to consider separate elections for the secession issue and council and mayoral seats for a new city. LAFCO has proposed simultaneous elections for city council seats and the secession initiative itself. Daar’s group wants secession to pass or fail first and, if it passes, to hold races for city seats in March. “I can’t say right now one way or another if we will file a suit or not,” said Daar. “I wouldn’t rule it out or in. We are considering all options.” Daar said his group is also examining “other issues” it intends to challenge, adding details would be revealed over the next few weeks. Perhaps the smallest, but loudest, group opposed to a breakup at the May 22 hearing was the five-member contingent of female senior citizens from the San Fernando Gray Panthers, a local advocacy group representing Los Angles residents. According to Panthers Chairwoman Lillian Kohn, her group may consider its own lawsuit. “We are going to have a board meeting next Tuesday and that is certainly an issue we intend to take up,” said Kohn. “To me, (the LAFCO vote) looked like a railroad job. The five of us that were there thought there was so much that was ignored, and we just aren’t sure that we want to sit back and let it continue to be ignored.” One entity that won’t be challenging the decision is the city of Los Angeles itself. The day after the LAFCO vote, Hahn stood beside former Mayor Richard Riordan at a press conference and said he would not be filing a suit because “the people have said they wanted to vote and they should have that opportunity,” according to his press secretary, Julie Wong. The mayor, nevertheless, has vowed to raise a $5 million war chest to defeat the issue. Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain said, while he expects challenges during the reconsideration period, they’d do little to change the resolution or the process from here forward. He also said there was scant reason to believe that a lawsuit brought against LAFCO would be taken seriously by any judge in the county. “Yes, I think there could be a lawsuit, and I think that would be unfortunate,” said Brain. “But we’ve had our lawyers and experts looking into this for a while now and we’ve been told that legal challenges before votes are held are typically dismissed because there’s nothing to sue over. Nothing has happened yet.” Another potential challenge could come from the largest union representing city workers, the Service Employees International Union, Local 347. Union General Manager Julie Butcher has said all along that her members would “fight the good fight” to keep the city whole. Concerns about pensions and benefits are among the top issues for the union, as it is with the unions representing the city’s fire and police personnel. Although LAFCO’s resolution stipulates that the new Valley city would have to honor all accrued sick and vacation day time for employees that might transfer from the employment of one city to another, the panel declined to rule on whether pensions for some city workers would be kept intact. Under the L.A. city charter, police and fire personnel who transfer out of the city cannot take their pensions with them. Instead, LAFCO said the city of Los Angeles has full legal authority to make those pensions portable through voter-approved amendments if it chooses to do so. Although a rough draft of the resolution presented prior to the May 22 hearing stipulated that Valley VOTE would be responsible for all legal costs of a suit against LAFCO, the final resolution shifted that responsibility to the new Valley city. Finally, there is concern by Valley VOTE regarding the start date for the new city. One of Brain’s last-minute requests before LAFCO approved the resolution was to have the new city incorporate Jan. 1, 2003, instead of the proposed date of July 1, 2003. During the hearing, Brain asked that the city merely be allowed to form Jan. 1, and that proponents would agree to hold off on transferring assets until July, but that request was denied. The January-July window, said Brain, “just presented too long of a time frame for the city to create all kinds of mischief for the Valley,” including transferring city equipment and employees, initiating development projects, and even canceling planned improvements for Valley streets and neighborhoods. Brain suggested that the mayor and city officials use the next few months to prepare what would be left of Los Angeles if secession is successful. “The mayor is playing a reckless game here,” said Brain. “The fact that the city is not taking steps to prepare itself for secession is very harmful. They are going full board with developments downtown, including a football stadium, without considering bond issues and what kind of an impact secession may have on the rest of the city.”
