Secession Study Is Falling Behind

The officials studying the secession of the San Fernando Valley and the Harbor area from Los Angeles voiced doubts Wednesday over whether they can meet the deadlines to put a municipal divorce proposal on the November 2002 ballot.

“The odds are slim to none at the pace we’re going now,� said Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the commission analyzing how to break apart the nation’s second-largest city.

The panel, the Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County, charged Wednesday that City Hall was sabotaging its effort to complete the analysis in time to get a secession proposal before voters next year.

Specifically, commission staff said a crucial city report last month provided an incomplete and inaccurate geographic breakdown of the city’s revenue sources. LAFCO is relying on the report to determine whether new Valley or Harbor cities--and what’s left of Los Angeles--would generate enough tax revenue to be viable as separate entities.

“We’re being stonewalled,� said Larry J. Calemine, LAFCO’s executive officer.

City officials denied they were trying to undermine efforts to put secession before voters, saying the report was as complete and accurate as possible.

The city had never before tried to determine how much revenue it collects from specific areas of the city, and it was a “massive undertaking� to try to figure it out, said Ron Deaton, the city’s chief legislative analyst.

“You don’t push a button, and the information comes,� he said. “We weren’t trying to be obstructionist in this.�

The city combined a host of financial databases with computerized Thomas Bros. street maps to try to pinpoint how much of its revenue comes from the Valley and how much from the Harbor area.

But the study failed to ascertain the origin of more than $1 billion in revenue out of $4 billion collected in the 1998-99 fiscal year.

Furthermore, LAFCO charged, errors in rounding off numbers led to significant inaccuracies, and the city used “questionable techniques� to produce the figures it did come up with.

LAFCO officials threatened Wednesday to sue the city. But they conceded that a lawsuit could bog down their secession study and make a November 2002 ballot proposal all but impossible.

“If we end up in litigation, you can talk about November 2008 before you have this on the ballot,� said Yaroslavsky, who is also a county supervisor.

Another LAFCO board member, City Councilman Hal Bernson of Granada Hills, urged the commission to declare its intent to reach a final decision on a breakup proposal in time for a November 2002 vote--regardless of whether the city provides all the data needed for the study.

“No delay beyond the November 2002 election should be tolerated,� Bernson said.

David Fleming, president of the city Fire Commission, a Studio City lawyer and benefactor of the Valley VOTE secession group, told the board the city’s report was “so sketchy that it’s obvious no one has bothered to dig out data, research it and refine it.�

He, too, warned that prospects for getting a secession proposal on the ballot next year were in doubt.

“The window is closing quickly,� he said.

The Dec. 15 report concluded that the Valley--where 35% of the city’s population lives--produces only 31% of major tax revenues. Valley secession supporters, who say the city shortchanges the Valley, have challenged the report’s accuracy.