Boland Bill on Secession

I am opposed to AB 2043, authored by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills). This proposed law pertains only to Los Angeles. By eliminating a vote of the Los Angeles City Council on break-away requests, the bill removes a key feature of detachment procedures, since before 1977 a vote of the entire city was required. Currently a vote of the City Council, as well as the voters of the proposed detaching area have, taken together, provided reasonable assurances that checks and balances existed in case the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) made rulings on the financial aspects of the breakup which were not in accordance with both parties’ sense of fair play.

A key feature of a breakup might well be the amount of compensation a detaching area would pay the remainder of the city. AB 2043 opens the way to a detachment process where the financial arrangements would be determined by LAFCO with the detaching area having a vote, but with the rest of the city being disenfranchised. It requires a remarkable faith for one to believe that LAFCO will always, or even almost always, make revenue-neutral rulings which provide fair compensation to the non-detaching part of the city. The taxpayers in the non-detaching part of the city would have to make up any difference by raising their taxes and fees and/or making do with fewer municipal services.

Indeed, detachments might very well not come from large parts of the Valley. Under the terms of this proposed legislation, there is a substantial increased possibility that we might see the detachment of commercial areas such as Century City or Warner Center. Such potential “cities of Commerce,” were they to get financially favorable rulings from LAFCO, could detach, unfavorably affecting the pocketbooks of taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles, including the residents of the San Fernando Valley. An unintended consequence of this bill is that we could well wind up a “Swiss cheese” city, pockmarked by imitations of the City of Commerce, whose departures would drain away a considerable amount of the tax base of the city.

I am urging the state Senate to either defeat AB 2043, or to return to the law as it existed before 1977, and allow a vote of the entire city on detachment matters.

RICK TUTTLE

L.A. City Controller