San Gabriel Valley Official Explores Idea of Seceding From L.A. County : Assembly’s Martinez says it warrants study and has invited constituents to a meeting to discuss it.

Now that the going has gotten tough in Los Angeles County, San Gabriel Valley may try to get going.

A small group of local officials is studying the possibility of breaking away from their financially strapped county to form a new one. And though similar efforts have repeatedly failed in the past, some who have lost faith in Los Angeles County say better government just might require a small revolution.

“We’re calling it the San Gabriel Valley secession,” said Assemblywoman Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park), who has held a series of meetings with local officials this week to discuss the idea’s feasibility. “I didn’t see the fiscal situation of L.A. County getting better. I saw it getting worse, and I put my foot down.”

To discuss the issue, Martinez has organized a town hall meeting at Alhambra City Hall on Saturday. She announced the meeting in a notice mailed to about 3,000 constituents in the 49th District, which includes parts of Alhambra, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Rosemead, Temple City and El Monte, unincorporated East Los Angeles, El Sereno and City Terrace.

At the bottom of the notice is a question with space to respond: “Do you think the residents of the San Gabriel Valley would be better served by a separate, smaller county?”

About 100 people have responded, Martinez said, and only a handful checked ‘no’--which she sees as a further indication that confidence in the county is waning.

The proposed San Gabriel Valley County, which Martinez has outlined on a map with a rough and negotiable line, would actually stretch far beyond the bounds of the San Gabriel Valley, from Palmdale to Cerritos, with Pasadena on the western edge and San Bernardino County on the eastern border. The area includes about 3 million residents, one-third of L.A. County’s population.

To find out how secession would affect local and county agencies, Martinez has ordered her staff to gather financial information, and she has met with officials from the county Fire Department and the Sheriff’s Department, city councils, unions, school boards and the county courts.

“All the folks that came in believe it’s worth talking about,” Martinez said. “Of the people that we’ve met, no one has said, ‘God, I don’t like that--It’ll never work.”

But not everyone is as excited about it as Martinez is.

“I’m not either for it or against it,” said Harry Baldwin, mayor of San Gabriel. “I’m just interested in gathering information. We’re happy with L.A. County. We feel we get our fair share of services.”

The Sheriff’s Department, like other agencies, has adopted a wait-and-see stance, and fire officials questioned how creating a new fire district and appointing another fire chief could improve firefighting or lower costs, Martinez said.

“My response was that we don’t have to pay the same salaries and make the poor management decisions that L.A. County has made,” Martinez said.

This time, the secession idea was born at last spring’s awards dinner for automotive students at Alhambra’s Mark Keppel High School. Martinez was talking with Mark Paulson, now mayor of Alhambra, about the county’s educational system and its multiple layers of administration.

Paulson, who describes himself as a moderate Republican, turned to Martinez with a sudden insight: “You know, we really need to form our own San Gabriel Valley County.”

“Diane’s eyes lit up,” he recalled, “and she’s taken it from that point.”

Now Martinez is talking logistics: revenues and expenditures in each area of the proposed county. Martinez says L.A. County is headed for bankruptcy, and she blames its supervisors.

“These guys are spending dough like we’re in a boom,” she said. “They’re like drug addicts, and we’re not going to keep them on the needle.”

If secession is fiscally possible and finds support, Martinez said, she will introduce legislation in January that would clear the way to put the issue on the ballot for Los Angeles County voters.

In 1987, Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte) was seriously exploring the idea of forming a San Gabriel Valley county, but the idea never bore fruit. In the 13 years before that, there were four unsuccessful moves in other parts of the county to secede. And even though a successful initiative would require a majority of L.A. County’s votes, Martinez said, she is undeterred.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever approached it this way,” she said. “The approach is, let’s study it.”