City Borough Supporters Ready for Backup Plan

Several backers of apparently moribund plans to govern Los Angeles through a series of boroughs say they will push to decentralize city government through perhaps the only means left: a competing measure that critics say will not bring real reform.

Meanwhile, supporters of one borough plan--a radical proposal to eliminate the City Council and divide Los Angeles into nine boroughs--say they want its author, Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), to gather signatures in hopes of placing the measure before voters next spring if San Fernando Valley and Hollywood secession bids fail in November.

“I’m raising the possibility of a Hertzberg measure going forward [after the secession election],” said Richard Close, the Valley secession leader who said earlier this week he would favor a plan like Hertz- berg’s over secession.

Hertzberg did not commit to an initiative campaign on Friday, although he said he would continue to push for boroughs in Los Angeles. “Our city needs to find a better way to govern itself,” he said.

Council members and others who fought for a borough measure on the Nov. 5 ballot to compete with secession say they will support an as yet undefined plan from council President Alex Padilla to create a better-government commission if, as expected, their proposal is defeated by the council on Tuesday.

The proposed commission, whose 21 members would be appointed by the City Council, mayor and city attorney, would examine ways to reform Los Angeles government. Its recommendations would go before the voters only with City Council approval. No date has been put forth for when it would have to finish its work.

Padilla fought both the Hertz- berg plan and a borough proposal by council members Wendy Greuel and Janice Hahn.

Critics say his commission is designed to keep power in the hands of the City Council, and will not bring real change. Padilla said there is too much interest in city political reform for that to happen.

“I believe people will be surprised when, without deadlines and without predetermined outcomes, this commission comes forward with specific and substantive recommendations,” Padilla said.

The council will vote on Padilla’s plan on Tuesday after voting on the Hahn-Greuel plan, which asks voters to amend the City Charter to create a borough system.

The much-debated Hahn-Greuel plan is expected to lose out to Padilla’s commission proposal.

The borough plans lost momentum this week as Mayor James K. Hahn and other secession opponents grew more confident that they could beat back secession. A Los Angeles Times poll released last week showed secession favored by voters in the Valley, but losing citywide. The poll showed Hollywood secession losing both there and throughout the city.

But the two councilwomen hope to push Padilla into accepting amendments to his plan.

“Wendy and I are going to try to focus the commission more directly, and ask for a specific date for it to be finished with its work,” said Janice Hahn. “I would also look to see language in the mission statement ... that they would first and foremost look at creating a system of community boroughs throughout Los Angeles.”

The fact that Padilla is proposing such a commission, Janice Hahn and others said, shows that the animated discussion of boroughs--and the support the idea generated among a variety of civic leaders--had moved the council president closer to their position.

On Friday, for the first time, Padilla said he believes Los Angeles government should be reformed, and that boroughs may be the way to do that.

Padilla’s plan was the only one to emerge from a political melee involving Hertzberg, Greuel, Janice Hahn, her brother Mayor Hahn, and others. Just as Greuel and Janice Hahn were unveiling their plan to ask voters to approve their approach, news broke that Hertzberg had developed a plan of his own. In the end, neither proposal appeared likely to move forward.

A City Council source familiar with the negotiations blamed Hertzberg’s unfamiliarity with municipal politics, saying that the former Assembly speaker was not willing to incorporate necessary compromises into his proposal.

Sources close to Hertzberg blamed the council, saying Greuel and others were not willing to put forward a meaningful plan.

Along the way, observers said, both secessionists and their opponents may have suffered some political damage.

“I don’t think the council is thinking this through,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a USC political scientist.

The council is admitting that something is wrong with Los Angeles government, she said, an acknowledgment that could be exploited by the secessionist side.

On the other hand, she said, the separatists may have been set back when two of their leaders, Richard Close and David Fleming, said they would support Hertzberg’s plan over secession.

Close criticized Padilla’s proposal, saying it was designed to circumvent real reform.

“The council members and the mayor will not give up their power and place that power in the hands of local communities,” Close said. “These will be hand-picked [commissioners] chosen by council members who do not want to give up their power. It’s a charade.”