Unhealthy Bias on Secession

The commission that will decide soon whether the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and harbor area secession measures qualify for the November ballot is an unapologetic cheerleader for breaking up Los Angeles. Surely this is not what the California Legislature intended when it created local agency formation commissions almost 40 years ago--at that time, mostly to oversee mundane disputes over sanitation and lighting district boundaries.

Last week, state Controller Kathleen Connell audited the commission’s analysis of Hollywood secession and found that a Hollywood city would not bring in enough tax revenue to support itself. The commission’s contention to the contrary was based on the new city borrowing $10 million from Los Angeles--what nerve!--and cutting services by another $10 million.

Connell earlier had found that a harbor area city would be millions of dollars in debt under even the rosiest of scenarios (meaning not shouldering any debt or other obligations it undertook as part of L.A.), as did the commission’s own consultant. But LAFCO Executive Director Larry Calemine told The Times, “We’re looking under bedcovers; we’re looking behind the chairs” for extra revenue. Chairman Henri Pellissier said, “If it’s possible or practical, we’d like to put it on the ballot,” adding that Calemine “may have left us some openings.”

Calemine, a leader of a fizzled Valley secession movement in the 1970s, has already dismissed a Connell audit that said a new Valley city would have alarmingly little money to set aside for unexpected expenses and emergencies. He has also rejected arguments--which the city will mount yet again today before LAFCO--that the commission’s analysis has underestimated secession’s effect on what would remain of L.A. It’s clear that the commission sees its role not as an evaluator but as an enabler. It is not determining whether secession should go on the ballot but how to get it there.

This is wrong, and not just for Los Angeles residents who believe that this city can be saved. It’s misleading for those who may vote for breakaway cities based on unsupported promises of better services and lower taxes.

By law, local agency formation commissions are answerable to no one but the courts--which was no big deal for commissions that largely oversaw relatively small matters. The Legislature can’t intervene, despite the way this commission is handling--or mishandling--a much more complex and consequential issue.

After two years and $2 million, the commission has offered no concrete details on what new or old cities would be like beyond a three-year “transition” period that itself doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Maybe that vagueness is what secession supporters are counting on. Voters, if they follow Connell’s more realistic assessment that deconstructing the nation’s second-largest city would be no breeze, could surprise them.