Secret Talks on Secession Rejected

Insisting on open debate, members of the Local Agency Formation Commission, the panel charged with overseeing the San Fernando Valley’s proposed secession from Los Angeles, rebuffed a bid Wednesday by backers of the breakup to negotiate details of their plan with city leaders behind closed doors.

“From this point forward, we have to adhere to a public disclosure mode, where everyone can see what we are doing,” said County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, one of nine appointed commission members. “Otherwise, there is going to be a lot of suspicion about the way this is being conducted, and we don’t want that.”

A day after submitting a blueprint that proposed a wholesale dismantling of most Los Angeles city departments, a leader of pro-secession group Valley VOTE suggested that Local Agency Formation Commission form a side committee where city officials and secessionists could privately resolve differences.

Bob Scott, a prominent Valley businessman and leader in the secession movement, said such meetings among “stakeholders” would be necessary to air issues surrounding the epic-scale collection and analysis of data needed to conduct a study on the consequences of deconstructing Los Angeles.

City officials have already complained about having to provide the voluminous data needed to conduct the study, which is required by state law and must arrive at certain findings for the proposed split to go on the ballot.

Secession would require a majority vote of the Valley, as well as the entire city.

“I am concerned that legal maneuvering could be used as a way to obfuscate the process,” Scott said, explaining that lengthy court action is likely unless parties can resolve their differences.

Though they did not kill the plan outright, members of a Local Agency Formation Commission subcommittee on secession said Wednesday that if such meetings were to take place, the public must be allowed to participate.

“It’s going to have to be done very openly,” said City Councilman Hal Bernson, also a commission member. “And I think it is going to be a very contentious process.”

Commission members spent the brunt of the hearing discussing ways to make the secession process more open, not less.

To that end, they hashed out a plan to raise public awareness of the issue by hosting a series of monthly public hearings. Though meetings would be held throughout Los Angeles, most would take place in the Valley and in the San Pedro-Wilmington area, which filed 16,900 signatures Wednesday to formally pursue secession along with the Valley.

The times and dates have not been determined, but commission members said they are aiming for night meetings to ensure adequate public participation. The commission usually meets once or twice a month at 9 a.m. at the county Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles, to a near-empty house.

“This is an extremely complicated process that the experts themselves are only now starting to understand,” said Valley VOTE chairman Richard Close. “We need as many public hearings as possible to try and explain this issue to the voters.”

Conceding that most residents probably know little about the commission, a state-created panel that usually decides sewer district annexations and other minor municipal boundary shifts, members also discussed plans to educate the public about secession. Ideas included creating a Web site, advertising in local newspapers and possibly even launching a public relations campaign.

But Yaroslavsky warned his commission colleagues not to get carried away.

“We could spend $50 million on a public relations campaign to explain LAFCO,” he quipped, “and it would still remain an enigma.”