Valley VOTE

Valley VOTE [Voters Organized Toward Empowerment] and its leaders and contributors are under frontal attack by the Los Angeles Times and the downtown establishment it actively supports. Why? All Valley VOTE is asking for is a study about whether secession for the Valley makes sense. That’s the question supported by the vast majority of Valley VOTE supporters, including this writer. Get us informed so we can make an intelligent decision on secession. If it doesn’t make sense, so be it. Yet The Times, supposedly L.A.’s primary purveyor of information, is adamantly against it being gathered and communicated. One must wonder why. Will deeply buried secrets be uncovered? Will abuse or misuse of power by the downtown establishment be revealed? Wouldn’t all that information be good press, perhaps even worthy of a Pulitzer? Isn’t that kind of story a newspaper’s dream?

So The Times’ position is very puzzling. Could it be that this issue is only about power and the risks to the downtown establishment in revealing the facts about its abuse or misuse as to the Valley? Could this lead to broader revelations all over the city? Has The Times itself been involved?

These and other questions must be answered in the face of the Times’ strident editorial attempts to squelch Valley VOTE’s information-gathering effort and recent related assaults on its leaders and contributors.

WILLIAM F. POWERS JR., Northridge