Secessionists Plan to Stake Victory in Own Backyard

Leaders of the San Fernando Valley secession drive are devising a strategy to win the Nov. 5 election with a grass-roots effort that would mine enough votes in their own backyard to carry the entire city.

If they can persuade two-thirds of Valley voters to support a breakaway, the theory goes, they will tip the scales so far that secession will claim victory without majority support in the rest of Los Angeles.

“All we need is 35% outside the Valley,” said Richard Close, chairman of the secession group Valley VOTE and a longtime leader of Sherman Oaks homeowners. “We’re figuring we’ll get about 65% of the Valley.”

The strategy outlined Thursday comes as Valley VOTE, a volunteer band of secessionists with just one paid staff member, gears up for what is expected to be a ferocious campaign against a well-funded cadre of prominent opponents. The Local Agency Formation Commission voted Wednesday to put Valley secession before voters citywide.

Lining up to block secession is a team of political, business and labor heavyweights, including Mayor James K. Hahn; his predecessor, Richard Riordan; former Secretary of State Warren Christopher; and billionaire real estate developer Eli Broad.

Hahn has pledged to raise $5 million for the effort, while the secessionists hope to collect $2 million to $4 million.

Close said secessionists will mount a populist effort, modeled after the landmark Proposition 13 tax reform campaign in 1978, relying on perhaps 25,000 volunteers chasing down the vote in precincts across the Valley.

Their message will tout the benefits of a smaller, more responsive government.

Proponents are also counting on a huge number of candidates--a Valley mayor’s office and 14 council seats will be up for grabs--to generate support and money. County Registrar-Recorder Conny B. McCormack estimated this week that there could be as many as 200 candidates for council offices in the Valley, Hollywood and harbor area cities if all three make the ballot.

Secession leaders plan to kick off their campaign today with a news conference in front of the Van Nuys city building. They will announce the formation of the San Fernando Valley Independence Committee, headed by former Assemblyman Richard Katz.

They said they do not plan to organize extensively in other parts of the city. But they are visiting communities irked by City Hall, such as South Los Angeles, to suggest ways they also would gain from a smaller Los Angeles.

Secessionists have hired the political consulting firm of Goddard Claussen Porter and Novelli, which has run dozens of successful ballot measure campaigns in California.

Ben Goddard, the campaign manager, said the group plans to take its message to television, radio and debates. The campaign will seek to substitute the more positive term “independence,” for the more confusing “secession,” he said.

Under California law, a municipal breakup must be approved by majorities of two groups of voters: those living in the breakaway region, and those citywide (including the area that would secede). A very strong showing in the Valley, which traditionally boasts high voter turnout, could sway the race citywide. Valley voters accounted for 42% of ballots cast in last year’s mayoral election.

“I think support in the Valley runs real deep,” said Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain. “People are going to come out of the woodwork to vote on this, people who haven’t voted in years. We don’t need to win totally across the city.”

City Council President Alex Padilla, a strong opponent of secession, agrees that the Valley will be the main battlefield.

“Previous elections have shown the significance of the Valley vote,” he said. The anti-secession group One Los Angeles has also decided to concentrate its efforts in the Valley.

If secession bids in Hollywood and the harbor area also make the November ballot, Valley cityhood backers say they can count on an extra boost for their cause. LAFCO is slated to decide the fate of those proposals in the next two weeks.

Valley secessionists plan to meet with leaders in South Los Angeles, where many African American residents were angered by the mayor’s decision to oppose a second term for Police Chief Bernard C. Parks; Westchester, where some residents are chafing at development at Los Angeles International Airport; and other areas.

In South Los Angeles, the Rev. Frederick O. Murph of Brookins AME Church said he will host a May 29 town hall meeting, featuring Close and Parks, to talk about secession.

“We are exploring this issue so we can make a decision,” Murph said.

On Thursday morning, Valley VOTE’s headquarters on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks was deserted except for a volunteer answering the phones, which were ringing off the hook.

“I just walked in the door one day and said, ‘Nobody answers your phone, you guys. Want me to?’” said Barbara Graham, 69, a retired accountant from Van Nuys. She’s been with Valley VOTE for about a year.

“We’re getting all kinds of calls,” Graham said. “People who want to run for office, people who want bumper stickers, people who want to help with the Web site.” Such enthusiasm aside, it remains unclear whether secessionists can raise the cash that will probably be required to compete at the mayor’s fund-raising level.

Secessionists have “bodies, but I don’t know that there are people who are writing huge checks,” said Harvey Englander, a Democratic political consultant unaffiliated with either side in the secession debate. “The difficulty is: Do they have the money to run a citywide campaign?” Valley VOTE has said it spent $500,000 to collect the voter signatures that launched the breakup process, but it has repeatedly refused to release a complete list of donors.

The group has said only that in 1998, the year of the petition drive, the top donors were the Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Police Commissioner Bert Boeckmann, and David Fleming, a Studio City attorney who serves on the city Ethics Commission.

But Fleming said Thursday that he might not contribute to the ballot campaign. If he does so, he would have to resign from the Ethics Commission, according to an opinion he obtained from the city attorney’s office.

“I have not made that decision,” he said. “I am still thinking about it.”

He added that Valley VOTE’s fund-raising has been hampered by the lack of wealthy backers. “There are no billionaires in the Valley,” Fleming said.