‘Remember the Van Nuys Air Show!’

So the governor has signed the bill, ending the suspense. Now all of Los Angeles can breathe again.

Strike that. All of the Valley was breathless in anticipation. No, strike that too. Some of the Valley was breathless--those revolutionary Valleyistas.

The bill Gov. Pete Wilson signed, of course, was the one that would assure secessionists (and their hired hands) an extra 90 days to gather signatures for a study that could lead to the great municipal divorce they desire.

So now the Valleyistas have their reprieve and that’s a fine thing, if only to extend the drama and raise the stakes. Regardless of how one feels about secession, it’s hard not to appreciate the political theater. Shakespeare, it isn’t. More like Gilbert & Sullivan. But certainly this is a tale that should end with a bang, not a whimper.

And if the Valley ever succeeds in seceding, just imagine the sort of pageantry that would occasion the city’s centennial celebration. Someday, schoolchildren will reenact the battle that proved to be the turning point of the campaign.

“Remember the Van Nuys Air Show!” they will shout.

Every revolution has its great moment of martyrdom. Texans have their Alamo, and Valley VOTE has the Van Nuys Aviation Expo. Valleyistas think of July 18 and 19, 1998, as days that will live in infamy. Airport security apparently misunderstood the rules of engagement and tossed them out as if they were some sort of outside agitators--or a vendor who lacked a permit.

This was the best thing that could have happened to the Valleyistas, even if it didn’t seem so at the time.

Perhaps some review is needed here: The secession law requires Valley VOTE to gather about 135,000 valid signatures--one-quarter of the registered voters in the Valley. Because such petitions always attract invalid signatures, they set a goal of 180,000 to 200,000 signatures to provide a cushion. Meanwhile, a dispute over the legal wording raised questions whether the petitioners had 90 or 180 days to reach their goal. Valleyistas prudently assumed the 90-day deadline--which happens to be today.

The Valleyistas are a hardy bunch whose cause is backed, financially and editorially, by my second favorite L.A. newspaper, which apparently doesn’t want to be an L.A. newspaper at all. The Daily News has contributed $60,000, making it the campaign’s largest contributor. And because petition pros are paid $1 per valid signature, well, you’d think 60,000 bucks should get them nearly halfway to their goal.

The campaign’s biggest problem, however, has been another law--the law of diminishing returns. The first few thousand signatures are easy to collect, the last few thousand a struggle. Valley VOTE says it has now collected more than 130,000 signatures, though nobody can say how many are valid. They’d have more if they had not been banished from the air show, though nobody can say how many more.

Valley VOTE Co-Chairman Richard Close has said that the air show, estimated to have attracted 250,000 spectators, would have netted more than 20,000, perhaps 40,000 more signatures.

All of this seems like wishful thinking. First, remember that official estimates of huge crowds usually tend to be exaggerations. Year after year, Pasadena officials claim the Rose Parade attracts 1 million spectators, though an analysis of the parade route has shown that the maximum capacity is closer to 350,000.

Even if the air show did attract 250,000 spectators over two days, remember that a large percentage would not even be of voting age, many would not live within the petition boundaries and some would have already signed the petitions. Collecting just 20,000 signatures would have been quite a feat.

But the Battle of the Van Nuys Air Expo turned out to be a terrific thing for Valleyistas, because it solidified their claims to victimhood. They have long portrayed the Valley as a victim of big, bad Los Angeles. And their treatment at the air show--by city employees, no less--could not be dismissed as the usual whining. Now martyrdom was truly theirs.

They got great media coverage. The American Civil Liberties Union rushed to their defense. So did the politicians. Even Valley pols who oppose secession want to stay on the good side of the secessionists.

Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) is one of those. He says he opposes secession, but of course favors a fair process. (Hard to oppose fairness.) Inspired by the air show debacle, he promptly introduced legislation to assure Valley VOTE an extra 90 days. It zipped through the Legislature--with a mildly surprising boost from Senate Majority Leader Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles).

Now, Polanco opposes secession too, but he may be in a mood to make nice with the Valley. Polanco, chairman of the California Latino Caucus, is best known in Valley politics for writing the last-minute, race-baiting mailer that attacked former Assemblyman Richard Katz and helped Councilman Richard Alarcon to victory in their state Senate primary.

And so another 90 days beckons, another three months of civic revolution which, as the Washington Post’s William Booth recently put it, is “rumbling . . . against the backdrop of a seemingly numbing process called ‘charter reform.’ ”

Mind-numbing, certainly.

Dispatches written for foreign places like Washington and New York are all part of the fun. For one thing, Valley jokes are dutifully recycled. And I, for one, find the errors amusing (certainly more so than my own).

When the New York Times parachuted in, for example, it reported that the San Fernando Valley was famously the home of the “Val Gal.” As if. Nowhere did the NYT use the proper term of Valley Girl.

While Booth avoided that faux pas, his report envisioned “the newly reconstituted ‘City of San Fernando.’ ”

The city of San Fernando, I’m sure, would have let him know that name is already taken.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at [email protected]. Please include a phone number.