Safe streets, better schools, lower taxes and their own local
government: some Valley residents feel seceding from Los Angeles is
the only way to get what they want.
“Tax money generated in the San Fernando Valley should be
spent on San Fernando Valley issues,” said Carlos Ferreyra,
co-chair of the group campaigning for secession.
L.A. Mayor James Hahn is campaigning to keep his city together,
arguing secession could compromise public safety and services in
both cities.
He will present his case at UCLA Saturday, where he will
headline a forum that will feature UCLA professors and secession
advocates.
“It is going to hurt a lot of people in Los Angeles if we
break the city apart,” said Kam Kuwata, manager of
Hahn’s L.A. United campaign.
If secession is approved, the new but currently unnamed city in
the San Fernando Valley would be the sixth-largest in the nation,
with 1.3 million people.
The final decision on whether to break up Los Angeles ““
the nation’s second largest city ““ will be up to the
people on election day.
A majority of voters throughout the current city of Los Angeles,
and a majority within the boundaries of the new Valley city, will
need to vote for secession to create a new city.
Regardless of the vote, UCLA and the Westwood area will remain a
part of Los Angeles.
But a Los Angeles Times poll released Wednesday indicated the
movement is not gaining a majority of support even within the
Valley, where enthusiasm has been greatest.
Among likely Valley voters, 47 percent opposed secession while
42 percent favored it, but the 5 percent gap was within the
poll’s margin of error.
Outside the Valley, 62 percent of likely voters oppose
secession, with 18 percent supporting the movement and 20 percent
had no opinion.
Ferreyra dismissed the poll results as “skewed,”
claiming they did not use a representative sample of Valley
residents.
“You can take a poll and have it say anything you want it
to say,” Ferreyra said. “The only poll that matters is
the one on Nov. 5.”
Voters need to approve the new city so Valley residents will be
able to use area tax money to provide services as they want, he
said.
While the representatives from the Valley hold more seats on the
Los Angeles city council than any other region of the city,
Ferreyra said the city is not spending enough money on the
Valley.
Money is also one of the reasons that secession opponents want
to keep the city together.
“If Valley secession succeeds, that could mean a hole in
the city budget of $4 billion,” Kuwata said.
This figure is based on projections the Valley city will cut
taxes, and its mitigating payments will not fully cover the costs
of secession.
It also reflects that Los Angeles would have to compete with the
new Valley city for new businesses, as well as state and federal
grants.
If this is true, public services could be cut back throughout
the city.
A study by UCLA urban planning professor Eugene Grigsby repeats
this concern, stating the Valley’s growing poor and elderly
populations will suffer from a lack of city services if secession
passes.
The new Valley city plans on lowering taxes, which could
eliminate the funds necessary for these programs.
Taxes are usually raised to fund new programs, which the Valley
city would need, Grigsby said.
“The current city of Los Angeles is able to provide those
services more easily than the new Valley city would,” Grigsby
said.
Ferreyra said Grigsby’s conclusions are “absolutely
wrong,” and the new Valley city would allocate a larger
percentage of its budget to social services than Los Angeles
currently does.
Grigsby said secession will have no effects on UCLA in the short
run, and would only have an effect if the city loses money to
provide services in Westwood.