Secession Watch Archive
Archive Aug. 21 - Aug. 30
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• KABC 790 Talk Radio is running one of those unscientific web straw polls on secession. The results at 9 p.m. Friday were 64% - 31% for the break-up with 5% having no opinion. It gives no info on how many have voted (though Secession Watch has clicked on "I"m not sure yet" twice in order to see the score.) Results on 97.1 FM's Conway and Steckler show are still holding at 33% "Makes sense," 40% "Stupid" and 25% "What is secession?"
• The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles will hold a secession forum on Sept. 12 with Richard Katz of SFV Independence debating Mike Feuer, the former Los Angeles city council member.
• Five of the 15 women running for the Valley city council will appear together in Pacoima on Saturday to highlight the lack of street lights there. They told the Daily News they have formed a group called Valleywomen to jointly push some of their concerns. The candidates are not forming a slate and will continue to campaign separately.
• Rebuttal ballot language came out Thursday and both sides show their strategic cards a little more. The pro side warns voters not to be confused and tries to broaden its appeal by adding the signatures of retired State Supreme Court justice Armand Arabian, a Latino Business Association official, a Westchester community leader and Joel Fox, formerly of the Howard Jarvis taxpayer group. The official argument against secession emphasizes that break-up won't affect the schools and tries to solidify its Latino and black support, adding the names of L.A. City Council President Alex Padilla and his fellow Pacoiman, pastor Andrae E. Crouch of Christ Memorial Church. Former GOP congress member Bobbi Fielder, a secessionist who finds the current plan lacking, is also there, as well as an official of the American Jewish Committee.
• State Sen. Richard Alarcon committed the worst sin imaginable to Valley secession loyalists when he flirted with joining them as their top VIP, then jumped into bed with the other side. The Daily News editorial page criticizes an Alarcon bill it says would give L.A. city hall more power, then levels the most withering charge in its arsenal. Alarcon, the DN lectures, "might come from the Valley, but his heart has clearly relocated to downtown."
• The board of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce voted 23-0 to oppose secession of Hollywood as bad for business, the Times and Daily News report. The membership was not polled.
• Does Cardinal Roger Mahony know about this? Secession never comes up in a long essay in the Tidings on Los Angeles, its origins and its present-day condition by Msgr. Francis Weber, the L.A. archdiocese archivist. The monsignor is an expert on the history of the Valley, his longtime home, and has authored books on the history of Mission San Fernando. Mahony is a forceful critic of the secession moves, and no one can argue he doesn't know the turf. He grew up in North Hollywood. But the piece plays it straight, even if it takes an upbeat view of the City of Angels.
NYT does mention secession in cathedral story
• Monday's installment of "Life and Times Tonight" on KCET Channel 28 will examine the recent resumption of street gang shootings in the Valley.
• The Virginia-based Leadership Institute is jumping into the secession fray, scheduling a Sept. 14 training workshop in the Valley for conservative candidates and campaign workers. Its arrival signals an ideological turn in the non-partisan campaigns. The Leadership Institute bills its sessions as a chance to "Join America's finest conservatives for an intense day of life-changing instruction," and claims to be "the premier training ground for tomorrow's conservative leaders." Strategy and tactics are its strength. In the Valley, 9th district candidate Robert Lamishaw is advertising his connection. Here's a brief liberal take on the institute from The American Prospect magazine.
• A new pro-secession web site, or at least newly encountered, called Valley Cityhood and You has a nice photo of Stoney Point but no inkling of who is behind the site or its claims. It's linked from the web site of 8th district council candidate Garrett Biggs, a board member of Valley VOTE.
• "Secession 101," the public service televison series, this week looks at how a new SFV city might fare if it contracted for essential services. Guests include Julie Butcher of SEIU Local 347, which opposes secession, and Bob Scott of the SFV Independence Committee, who is for of course. They are joined by Sam Olivito, Executive Director of the California Contract Cities Association, and Dennis Washburn, a city councilmember in Calabasas. Secession 101 runs on Channel 36, the L.A. city cable channel, and is produced by the Civic Forum, a neutral clearinghouse of information on secession. Ken Bernstein of the Civic Forum hosts the shows, which air Sundays at 11:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. and Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. Past shows are available to download at the Civic Forum site.
• Now this is smaller, closer-to-the-people politics. ValleyPetNews.com ran an editorial last month called Pets Need Secession, giving a litany of suggestions and arguing that "our new Valley city can certainly do better than killing nearly 75% of the pets" turned in at shelters. After the commentary by editor Nancy Smith, assemblyman and mayoral candidate Keith Richman called to chat up the issue. Says the site: "A politician interested in pets and how to service them better has his heart in the right place."
• Add a new West Los Angeles-based blog called The Sabertooth Journal to those commenting on-line in favor of secession. He comes at it from the government waste point of view.
• The ten candidates for mayor of the Valley give a sampling of their views on keeping the LAPD and fire department, rent control, business taxes and the salary a mayor should make in an L.A. Times story by Patrick McGreevy. They mostly agree, which won't make for a stirring campaign. On the salary question, the early big guns Keith Richman and Mel Wilson demur, saying the residents should be surveyed.
• In the fanciful works of Long Beach artist Sandow Birk, the post-secession Valley is overrun by the army of San Francisco on its march south to conquer Los Angeles. Says James Ricci in the L.A. Times' Secession Sketchbook feature, "His 'In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of the Californias' has been shown in galleries and museums in San Francisco, West Hollywood, Laguna Beach and Sonoma." In a 46-minute film made by Birk and friends, the Valley loses in a military fiction because "Its troops were very green. They retreated from the get-go, without more than a few shots fired in self-defense."
History: Real battles on the Valley floor
• New angles in the street lamp wars, from James Nash in the Daily News. Mayor Jim Hahn wants a study on how to provide lights for all neighborhoods that want them, council president Alex Padilla suggests using Ventura Boulevard's old lamps to illuminate Pacoima's dark streets, and the fairness question comes up: if the city stops charging a fee to install and run the lights, what about all the neighborhoods that already pay? The DN page includes links to previous coverage.
• The wrong way to run a bus line: At the conclusion of a meeting where they gave MTA officials an earful, Valley bus riders went outside to find the buses on Van Nuys Boulevard summarily suspended because of filming for a soft-drink commercial. MTA officials hurriedly organized carpools to take the stranded riders to alternate bus stops.
• Valley Culture Watch: A vanished slice of the Valley's suburban milieu, the Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, may soon return with its signature offerings like The Pig's Trough and the Hot Fudge Nutty Nutty. A revived Farrell's has opened in Saugus, and the owners -- who also run Northridge Skateland -- are eyeing the Valley.
Council hopeful Perry worked at Canoga Ave. Farrell's
• The Helldorado controversy at Hansen Dam surfaces again in the L.A. Weekly. Writer Hope Urban says filming of the Brazil Western (a new genre?) must wait for the the Bell's vireo, an endangered bird species, to stop nesting in the dam area. Good detail in the story, if the issues -- filming permits vs. neighbors and the environment -- move you.
Earlier report on Helldorado and Charlie's Angels 2
• Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters gave mayoral hopeful Keith Richman props for trying to work with the Democrats to break the state budget impasse. It's from last Friday but got missed. And while we're catching up, here's a French language take (bad English from Google) on la guerre de sécession from the Liberation.Fr web site back in May. It praises Ventura Boulevard restaurants, mentions porn and quotes state Sen. Tom McClintock. And finally, this commentary from the conservative California Political Review earlier in August.
• Culture Watch: A Washington Post story on a new Museum of Sex opening in New York asks, why not "in the San Fernando Valley, the national capital of the pornography industry?"
• More on the million-plus club in Valley real estate: actor Freddy Prinze recently sold his one-acre Toluca Lake spread with 1933-era home for $3.5 million. Fiancee Sarah Michelle Gellar is trying to sell her Sherman Oaks home for $2 million, Forbes magazine says.
Last weekend: 11 homes go for a million
• We knew that the Valley's foreign-born population grew again in the 1990s, and now the 2000 census tells us by how much -- a whole lot. More than 525,000 foreign-born residents comprise 38.8% of the population, which the Daily News calculates is an increase of almost a third since the last census in 1990. The paper, which worked with CSUN professor of geography Eugene Turner on the numbers, does a good job putting it in the secession context. Beth Barrett quotes respected UC Berkeley analyst Bruce Cain, an expert on political shifts from his days as a reapportionment guru, saying that the immigrant surge in the Valley could prove decisive in the secession election. "There are enormous political consequences" of the Valley's continuing population shift, he said. The Valley's percentage of foreign-born residents is now about the same as that of the rest of Los Angeles. The DN editorial page, meanwhile, views the recent Census data on the erosion of middle-class income as more proof that Los Angeles is a failed experiment.
• The Daily News op-ed page apparently needed to fill and picked up the weekend's analysis of the statewide Mexican American Political Association fiasco by Dan Weintraub in the Sacramento Bee.
• The fight heated up Tuesday over the 14-mile-long busway that the MTA wants to run along Chandler Boulevard and on into the west Valley. This would be a good issue for cityhood candidates to distinguish themselves on.
• Opposition also rose to a higher temperature Tuesday over the Las Lomas mega-development that a developer would like to build between the two major freeways -- Interstate 5 and highway 14 -- that fork on the Santa Clarita side of historic Newhall Pass. The developer wants to build 5,000 homes on the hilly terrain along The Old Road, then have the whole thing declared part of the San Fernando Valley and annexed into the city of Los Angeles. The city council in Santa Clarita voted $50,000 to fight the scheme.
• Canoga Park figures in a pair of crime stories in today's L.A. Times: sentencing in a sexual assault case and a lawsuit filing by parents of a gang murder victim.
• Secession opponents allied with Mayor James Hahn, including former mayor Richard Riordan, are lobbying the Valley Industry and Commerce Association to remain neutral in the Nov. 5 election, Harrison Sheppard reports in the Daily News. The phone calls and letters trouble secession leaders and VICA vice-chair Bob Scott, who says the "downtown crowd [is] using every trick in the book, dirty and otherwise, to keep people from supporting cityhood." Other VICA leaders quoted seem unexcited, saying that both sides have asked for the membership list. VICA is polling its members on whether to take a side, and finds itself in a tricky, possibly no-win situation. Some of its leaders are very pro-secession, but more than other Valley business groups, VICA has something to lose by publicly getting involved. The group is a player in city affairs with members who tend to get appointed to boards and commissions. One reason for its clout is that VICA has been seen as less ideologically motivated by Daily News-style Valley chauvinism and more into economic development and political results. Some members must be pondering if joining a secession cause that looks more quixotic -- as days fly off the calendar with the break-up question trailing -- is worth the price in lost influence. It will be very interesting to see whether VICA chooses to thrown down the gauntlet and go to war with Los Angeles, or opts to keep the peace and move on. The group promises a statement of some kind in September.
Economic Alliance of SFV: We pass, thanks
• Both the Daily News and Times report on new studies of census data showing that household income in the Southern California middle class fell during the 1990s. The DN leads its piece with the news that the Valley saw a "sharp decline," adding that Valley minorities are better off than those elsewhere in Los Angeles. A sidebar looks at a few recent arrivals to the Valley. The Times coverage is geographically broader but one of the communities highlighted is Porter Ranch. The sag in personal income there is blamed on the loss of aerospace jobs and the Van Nuys GM plant in the '90s and the 1994 earthquake. (Aside: The main energy pulse from the quake zapped directly under Porter Ranch before shoving the Santa Susana Mountains, on which the community sits, upwards about a foot.) For a contrast, the San Jose Mercury details how income soared in the Bay Area in the 1990s.
• A unexpected colony of red-legged frogs found near Santa Clarita could affect the debate over Ahmanson Ranch and other developments. The species is considered threatened, but 100 frogs were observed in a single night along a creek in San Francisquito Canyon denuded of brush by a wildfire. The canyon, by the way, is where the deadliest civil disaster in Southern California history occured. The St. Francis Dam, the last stop for Owens Valley water before it cascaded into Sylmar, broke on March 12, 1928, killing more than 400 people downstream along the Santa Clara River. The dam failure ended the career of aqueduct builder William Mulholland. This year's wildfire also makes exploring the site easier.
• The Theodore Payne Foundation, a Sun Valley horticultural institution, is facing a deadline to obtain a variance on the land where its store and offices are located on Tuxford Street. The group's famed nursery of native plants is unaffected.
• The Keystone Kops must be advising the city of Burbank on airport security, an L.A. Times editorial contends. The city last week shut down work at the airport in a dispute over expansion. This is about fighting terrorism, not about airport expansion, the paper claims.
• With office vacancy rates in the West Valley over 15%, the Warner Center Business Park has sold for a somewhat disappointing $55 million, the Times reports.
• Patagonia is talking secession from Argentina, the New York Times reports. The region has about the same population size as the San Fernando Valley.
• Marc Strassman, one of the Valley mayoral candidates, has posted the questionnaire (requires Adobe Acrobat) the Daily News sent to the hopefuls. It comes with his answers. Strassman's campaign site explains his quirky platform, which is largely about universal access to various computer technology. He also has a site that webcast a discussion on secession with realtor candidate Mel Wilson.
• Professor Hogen-Esch of CSUN, fresh from his Daily News appearance Sunday, shows up again as the neutral voice in a front-page piece by political editor Pilar Marrero in La Opinion (with Googled English here) that looks at minority clout in a smaller-sized Los Angeles. The articles says most Latino and African American leaders have concluded that even though their numbers would rise, secession would hurt their communities.
• The city of Calabasas, adjacent to the secession-able swath of the Valley, has a different issue going with street lights. It wants to ensure that the night remains dark.
• The Valley's city council members claim credit for the deluge of city services -- traffic cops, street resurfacing, et al -- washing over the Valley this year, but secession advocates know better. "My guess is they're going to welch on this Nov. 5," Gerald Silver of Encino told the Daily News. Interesting observation from Ruth Galanter, the Westside council member who was deported to the Valley in reapportionment and finds the conditions there different than in her old haunt. "I'm really appalled by the condition of the streets out there. Some of them have never been paved, some paved 30 years ago." The DN editorial page hits on the clout argument, using the Rose Institute study from last week. Editor's note: No Orlov column as of 2 a.m. Going to bed, more later...
• It's the L.A. Times' turn to parse out the motivations and preparedness of the novices campaigning for Valley posts. For Jay Rosenzweig, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run for office without raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's why I'm doing this. This is a race for the underdog." Secession leaders are giving free advice on how to talk to voters and the media, and urging them to stay positive. But there's a sobering take on it all from Fernando Guerra of Loyola's Center for the Study of Los Angeles: "Symbolically, I favor their approach. But in reality, it hasn't worked in a big American city in 40 years. And there's no reason to believe that it would work this November." One failing, he suggests: most are campaigning in the Valley rather than over the hill, where one could argue the votes are more valuable. Unless secession gets enough L.A. votes, edging out the field in one of the Valley council districts won't mean much.
Valley Secession Fever: What about Mel Wilson?
• Luc Robitaille, a former star of the Los Angeles Kings, came to the Valley Sunday with the Stanley Cup he won this year playing on the Detroit Red Wings. Luc, who used to co-own the Iceoplex rink in North Hills, let his former L.A. fans see and feel the trophy at Universal Studios. It's one of hockey's charming traditions that each player on a championship team gets to do whatever he wishes with the Cup for a day. It's been to Russia and the flood-ravaged Czech Republic already this summer, and Robitaille escorted it Sunday to Hollywood's Chinese Theatre and to home plate at Dodger Stadium as well as to Universal. One of the grand gestures in Los Angeles sports history, but the politics angle? Um, he plays left wing?
• Is someone being a bit hasty? The Sotheby's info sheet for a three-acre lot on High Knoll Road in Sherman Oaks brags of "dazzling city views." Um, those would be "Valley views," at least until Nov. 5. But what views they must be: the parcel is listed at $1.45 million, without even a house on site. If that seems like an un-Valley-like price, it's time to recalibrate your opinion of the place. In a single week in July, 11 properties in the Valley sold for more than a million smackers. Tops was a Petit Avenue manse in Encino that fetched $1,820,000, according to the weekly chart in the Daily News from First American Real Estate Solutions.
• Valley Culture Watch: The Museum of Neon Art in L.A. ran a sold-out cruise of the Valley's best neon signage on Saturday night. Folks paid $45 each to ride in a double-decker bus and check out the sights, after a walking tour of the neon at CityWalk. It's no one-shot deal: Another is set for Sept. 20. Also on Saturday night, the Chatsworth Equine Heritage Cultural Organization held a barn dance out in horse country to raise money to fight developers. Neon and uppity cowboys -- the suburbs are a-changing.
• To whoever runs the Daily News website: Ping! Sunday's Viewpoint section was off-line all day. Here's the lineup, from the print edition. Top billing goes to Cal State Northridge secession expert Tom Hogen-Esch, who suggests that the break-up fight is giving all of Los Angeles a much-needed civics lesson. Regular columnist Chris Weinkopf dings both sides -- though mostly the opposition -- for their rhetorical excesses. He includes some reported here, such as when fired planning commissioner Bob Scott likened his ouster to the Tiananmen Square massacre without tanks. Since Weinkopf is described as a DN editorial writer, he probably has his own rhetorical offenses to account for; today, though, the editorial page is restrained. It chastises the San Fernando politicians who voted to oppose secession, and repeats state Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian's pro-divorce quip from earlier in the week. Frequent contributor Kimit Muston weighs in on the streets light issue. Three letters to the editor -- which are on-line -- revisit street lights, and three others speak up for seceding. Added: And there's a Patrick O'Connor cartoon lampooning a downtown fat cat bothered by "a bunch of whiners in the Valley."
• The Recorder legal newspaper scrutinizes the litigation, real and threatened, around the secession issue. There are plenty of lawyers in this hunt.
• More sunlight shined on the MAPA imbroglio from Dan Weintraub, columnist for the Sacramento Bee.
Earlier Secession Watch postings on it:
Daily News
L.A. Times
S.F. Chronicle
La Opinion
• La Opinion carries a long commentary by David Diaz (rough English here) that argues the Valley secession effort has too many little chiefs and no big chief -- and not enough foot soldiers to get the job done. He says the origanization was built to get on the ballot but not to sell the idea to a skeptical public. The paper also has a report on one woman's inner debate with secession. Here's the Espanol and the rough English version.
• The Daily News reports Sunday on controversy over a bill by State Sen. Richard Alarcon that would create the grand-sounding Commission on the Effective Governance of the City of Los Angeles to kick in after secession is defeated. It would have 18 members appointed by City Hall, the governor and legislative Democrats. Secessionists like Republican assemblyman Keith Richman are vehemently opposed. The DN also carries more what-if on the clout issue, with a Washington story and a sidebar on how regional federally funded services would continue. The Sunday editorials and opinion articles had not been posted as of 9:45 a.m.
• On the front of the Times' Sunday Opinion section, writer Susan Anderson argues there is some nuance to the stance of African Americans on secession. She suggests that many black leaders have withheld announcing their position, probably hoping to gain some political leverage, and says that the Rev. Zedar E. Broadous, a Valley VOTE board member, supported a formal break-up study but is on the fence on secession itself. On one point, she says that many blacks believe it was their vote that elected Jim Hahn mayor. But many others feel it was the Valley that made the difference in Hahn defeating Antonio Villaraigosa.
• There's some fallout from the Los Angeles magazine story on Daily News chief Ron Kaye. Los Angeles blogger Ken Layne is upset on behalf of his friend, former DN assistant city editor Amy Langfield, who is quoted in the piece questioning in 1998 the paper's controversial $60,000 donation toward secession. She makes the point on her web log that the magazine dredged out an old quote from the New York Times and didn't contact her. The quote is apparently accurate, however, and the magazine's writer, Charles Rappleye of the L.A. Weekly, clearly says that her comment was made back in 1998. Should he have said it was from the NYT? Maybe, though it's not a substance-altering omission. Added: Langfield (known as Amy Collins in 1998) e-mails that it's only the attribution-to-NYT issue she quibbles with: "I think if a reporter is going to lift an entire quote from another publication, that reporter should make clear where he got that quote." Layne's spin is more extreme: he says journos are "lazy, thieving scum" (not counting himself and his pals, presumably).
• Things are getting tense at Burbank Airport. Burbank city inspectors shut down work on security upgrades at the terminal, even as a Superior Court judge ruled unconstitutional the voter-approved Measure A that seeks to block expansion plans. For the record, it's the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, and the city of Burbank -- which opposes expansion -- doesn't control what the airport authority does. Neither would a city of the San Fernando Valley, but its elected officials would be under a lot of pressure to reduce noise from the airport.
• Disarray within the Mexican American Political Association has reached the Valley secession campaign, James Nash reports in the Daily News. Already riven with internal strife over its position on the Davis-Simon race for governor, MAPA now looks plain silly. On Friday, a man who said he is a MAPA vice president stood with secession leaders at Ritchie Valens Park in Pacoima and claimed the group's national board endorses secession. The national president later denied that any position has been taken. Meanwhile, the Valley chapter apparently does oppose secession -- but it has been booted from the national organization for not paying dues. The Times story adds that a new pro-secession Valley chapter is forming. The national board meets August 31 to sort all this out, and that should be fun. When the state MAPA convention met last weekend at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, police had to be called. It appears that the convention endorsed Bill Simon for governor...but then state officials of the group say no. La Opinion ran this explainer on the governor's race snafu Friday but has only a photo in Saturday's paper on the Pacoima event.
• The website for the Conway and Steckler Show on FM station 97.1 (8-11 p.m., M-F) is asking listeners for their feelings on secession. This is the station that airs Howard Stern, and the pair bill themselves as "the funniest two-man team to ever air in SoCal." Results so far:
"I think it makes sense" - 33%
"Stupid, L.A. and the Valley are one big city" - 39%
"What is secession?" - 26%
• Weekend reading: Gregory J. Wilcox has a fun feature in the Daily News on Cameron Woods, a model Van Nuys neighborhood used since the 1950s for TV commercials, episodes and films...The liberal American Prospect carries a review of two new books on the politics of the suburbs, one of them co-authored by Peter Dreier of Occidental College, the co-chair of the Los Angeles progressive group PLAN. No mention of the Valley in the review...Joel Kotkin, a rising sage of the Valley, wrote this week on Opinion Journal.com on how the digital age is allowing businesses to "decluster" from away from high-rise centers like Lower Manhattan.
• Add Harvey Englander, a veteran campaign strategist who has worked for both Democrat Richard Katz and Republican Keith Richman, to those who think secessionists are blowing their chance. "The secession campaign has lost its focus. The anti-secession side has taken control," Englander says in the latest L.A. Business Journal. "They need a respected statesman to lead the campaign. Richard Katz is respected - but he’s a politician, not a statesman." Englander knows the Valley. He ran the first Northeast Valley campaign of the late councilman Howard Finn, led Katz in his tough battle (he lost by seven votes) with State Sen. Richard Alarcon and guided Richman, the Northridge assemblyman, two years ago. He says the secession cause made a strategic mistake not to pursue breaking up the Los Angeles school system first. Englander began his political life as a Bobby Kennedy volunteer, but now works for candidates of both parties. Meanwhile, David Zahniser of Copley News Service reports that pro-secession leaders are already talking rematch in 2004, hoping that the Harbor's breakaway bid will be on the ballot, while the anti side is targeting defeat even within the Valley on Nov. 5 hoping that will put the issue to death.
Earlier Englander advice to Hahn
• Assemblyman Keith Richman must be in the mayoral race for real -- on Thursday he announced that he no longer supports the unpopular Ahmanson Ranch development that he had lobbied for as recently as last fall. After declaring his candidacy for Valley mayor, the Republican said he was reconsidering his position. He tells the Times' Daryl Kelley that he won't support Ahmanson unless the traffic impact is lessened. It appears to be a scoop for Kelley. Added: (Yep, Daily News catches up on Saturday.)
• Both papers lead their stories on Thursday's business forum with the only hard news, a study by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College that compares Los Angeles' record on revenues and spending with that of other cities. The Times story focuses on the author's conclusion that L.A. is not business friendly. The Daily News focuses on his evidence that Los Angeles does not compete well for dollars in Washington and Sacramento. "Remarkably ineffective," is the way author Steven Frates put it. The Times' Patrick McGreevy also notes that VICA, one of the forum's sponsors, will poll its members' position on secession next week. A formal endorsement either way by VICA, the Valley's most influential business group, would be noteworthy. The Times also carries the news that a Watts community activist is launching an effort to seek the secession of Watts and South-Central Los Angeles.
Exclusive Secession Watch report on forum
• The Daily News editorial page gets all outraged about the way L.A. has traditionally financed residential street lights, using the chance to rail again that -- you can guess it -- secessionists are virtuous and the "downtown power structure" is sanctimonious. An on-line check of the DN archives back to 1985 finds no previous concern for the way street lights are financed, or any concern about Pacoima being short of illumination. Meanwhile, council president Alex Padilla of Pacoima concedes that new ways of financing lights should be explored.
DN Thursday: Only L.A. does it this way
• Secession Watch Special: Debate in Sherman Oaks
Ahead of the morning papers, Secession Watch reviews today's forum, "Secession: The Business Perspective," held at Sportsmen's Lodge. Media reports will be posted as they appear tomorrow.
The show stealer was county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who explained his key role in the Local Agency Formation Commission placing break-up on the Nov. 5 ballot. (He is a LAFCO member.) "I have tried to be an honest broker. It was our judgment that the sooner we got it to the voters, the better."
Unlike many elected Democracts, Yaroslavsky said he won't take a public position on secession: "It's not as bad as the opponents claim it is, and it's not as good as the proponents say it is." Still, he said, he totally gets the deep hunger for community that makes many in the Valley desire their own city: "It's a cultural thing. You can't explain it in an analysis, or in a consultant's report...it just is." It's absurd to question the Valley city's viability, he said, so the voters' quandary is to decide yes or no if they would be better off with the Valley separate: "Is it worth all the effort?"
Either way, he said he'll accept the result: "The voters usually get it right." He also credits the controversy with triggering a healthy examination of how Los Angeles works or doesn't work. "If nothing else, it has generated a civic debate the likes of which we haven't had in a long time," he concluded.
Writer and policy analyst Joel Kotkin -- who favors boroughs over secession -- scored high on the Quip Meter, dismissing criticism that the Valley's secession motivations are racial: "The Valley voted 2 to 1 for Al Gore, so it's not exactly Mississippi." Honorable mention goes to Richard Katz, co-chair of SFV Independence, who opened his remarks by announcing "We're not too stupid to govern ourselves," and got serious with a vow that "We're going to change the face of Los Angeles forever."
Also speaking in favor of secession were Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Joel Simon of the Valley's United Chambers of Commerce. Appearing against the break-up were City Controller Laura Chick, Rusty Hammer of the Greater Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and Mitch Menzer, president of the city Planning Commission, for L.A. United. The debate was sponsored by a roster of officially neutral groups:The Civic Forum
Valley Industry and Commerce Association
Economic Alliance of the SFV
Los Angeles Business Council
Asian Business Association
Southland Regional Association of Realtors
• The Valley's Southland Regional Association of Realtors has posted another 700 responses to its secession preference poll we reported on three days ago. Support among real estate brokers and agents (plus any ringers who take the on-line poll) is up to 64.2%. More than 2,000 respondents have been counted. Just over 91% also want the thus-far-neutral organization to take a formal position. Mayoral candidate Mel Wilson is past president of SRAR and writes its Legislative Advocate newsletter.
• The Valley's most prominent 19th century inhabitant, Andres Pico, lived in grand style at Mission San Fernando Rey and sponsored a bill in the Legislature to secede all of Southern California from the north. It actually passed -- but got shot down in Washington over the politics of slavery and the impending Civil War. (Don Andres was a Californio war hero, and a Democratic Party leader who never learned English, as well as a rancher and the brother of California's last Mexican governor, Pio Pico.) Tonight at 9 o'clock on KCET, California Connected reports on a continuing tradition of secession talk up around Yreka, where some people wish (not too seriously) for creation of a 51st state called Jefferson.
• The Times covers a new wrinkle in conservation -- and resulting furor -- in which some residents of the Valley below Mulholland Drive voted to tax themselves $40 a year to buy up and preserve open space in the Santa Monicas.
• The city council of San Fernando voted unanimously to oppose secession, while a former justice of the state supreme court, Armand Arabian, announced he is for the breakup. The Daily News says the San Fernando resolution contends the Los Angeles portion of the Valley is out of step with Latino concerns, citing the defeat of mayoral hopeful Antonio Villaraigosa, opposition to bilingual education and support for Proposition 187. Arabian is a longtime Van Nuys lawyer and jurist who got off a decent quip: "The key to this issue is in the spelling. To Valley residents, it's San Fernando; to the uninformed, it's San Fernanduh and to the downtown elite, it's San Fernandough." The county also said 111 candidates will be on the Valley ballot.
• One secession advocate is on the list of finalists for the Fernando Award, which the Valley business community will award for the 44th year. The winner is announced at a banquet Nov. 1, just days before the secession movement learns its fate.
Break-up activist Powers and Richter 2001 finalists too
• The Daily News' James Nash turns up the fact that Los Angeles is alone among big cities in charging homeowners directly for street lights. Would the Valley city candidates change that long-standing practice?
• The Patrick O'Connor cartoon in today's Daily News depicts a homeless man, lying on a scruffy Ventura Boulevard sidewalk, remarking, "I feel much better now that all the street lamps match." It might have more zing if Ventura actually had a lot of scruffy street people compared to other parts of the Valley.
Previous street lights coverage
• This week's San Fernando Valley Business Journal has a politics story on political consultant Larry Levine and the One Los Angeles anti-secession campaign, and a report on the Valley's top 25 bankers. There's also a list of speakers at tomorrow's forum on the business impact of secession, to be held at Sportsmen's Lodge.
• Los Angeles officials now plan to move the Valley police headquarters out of Van Nuys to Woodland Hills and open a new Southwest Valley division, the Daily News says. This upsets community leaders in Van Nuys, which would lose yet another institution to the more affluent West Valley.
• "Although they may not acknowledge their common goals, neighborhood council organizers and secessionists are fighting the same fundamental law of political life," say two academic writers on the Daily News Op-ed page, pushing the neighborhood council concept. "Politics heeds the interests of small, well-organized groups over those of large, diffuse constituencies." Christopher Weare is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, and Juliet Musso is an associate professor of public policy at USC.
• Demolition work will begin soon at Burbank Airport even though expansion plans remain under a cloud, the Times says. Any talk of expanding Burbank is a heated issue in the rest of the Valley.
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