2 More Valley Legislators Unveil Secession Bills

Two more bills pushing San Fernando Valley secession were put in play in Sacramento Wednesday by Assemblymen Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) and Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar).

Hertzberg’s proposal is an attempt to forge a compromise between legislation introduced by Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) and state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) on the critical issue of who gets to vote on secession.

Cardenas was vague about the specifics of his legislation, saying only that it seeks to protect his northeast Valley district from “getting lost in the process.”

“People of the northeast Valley need to be [involved in] anything affecting them so dramatically,” Cardenas said.

Valley community leaders familiar with the Cardenas plan say it is limited in scope, addressing only the Valley splitting from Los Angeles and leaving other areas of Los Angeles that have expressed interest in independence out of the equation.

“He goes so far as to name the new city--North Los Angeles,” said Jeff Brain, co-chairman of Valley VOTE, a group formed last year to support the original secession bill.

Brain said his group, which has been working with both legislators, is pleased by the flurry of activity in Sacramento, which coincided with Wednesday’s deadline to submit proposed laws to the Legislative Counsel for drafting.

“The legislators have seen this is a real movement of the people,” Brain said.

Cardenas and Hertzberg have until Feb. 28 to formally introduce the bills in this session.

Both said they acted to preserve their options for later in the session, when two other Valley secession bills will be taken up by the Legislature.

McClintock’s bill is a rerun of the bill introduced unsuccessfully last year by former Assemblywoman Paula Boland of Granada Hills, which would eliminate the Los Angeles City Council’s veto power over secession requests, giving Valley voters alone power to make the decision.

McClintock’s bill competes with legislation by Lockyer, which also would get rid of the council’s veto, but calls for a citywide vote and a state-funded study of the impacts of dividing Los Angeles.

“We believe we have the right bill, but it’s healthy for every option to be examined,” Lockyer said in response to Wednesday’s developments.

Hertzberg said he weighed in out of concern that Valley secession legislation would be killed in the Assembly this year unless a local Democrat got behind it.

“My job is to communicate to the Democratic caucus how important an issue this is to the Valley,” Hertzberg said.

Both he and Brain said they expected to gain support for a bill from the Latino Caucus. Latino legislators vehemently opposed Boland’s secession bill.

“We’ve spoken to members of the Latino Caucus,” Brain said. “This year they are not going to oppose the bill like they did last year.”

In appealing to Cardenas, Valley VOTE leaders told him the Latino community in his district was not receiving its share of funds earmarked for minority communities.

As 25% of a new city, Valley Latinos would have more clout and receive more resources, Brain said.

Hertzberg said his proposal seeks to compromise on the key sticking point dividing those for and against the bill: the question of who gets to vote on secession, the whole city or just the area that wants to secede.

Under Hertzberg’s measure, the size of the area petitioning to secede would govern who gets to cast a ballot. If the area wishing to secede is a third or more of Los Angeles’ population, as the San Fernando Valley is, then voters throughout Los Angeles would get to vote on the proposal.

In cases in involving smaller parts of Los Angeles, only voters in the area seeking independence from Los Angeles would have a voice in the decision.

Lockyer’s bill, meanwhile, has been assigned to two committees. Hearings have yet to be scheduled.