LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Secession measures calling for independence for the San Fernando Valley and for Hollywood -- the first plans for breaking up a major city that ever came to a vote in America -- were soundly defeated in Los Angeles overall.
A narrow majority within the San Fernando Valley, however, opted for breaking away, emphasizing the dissatisfaction among many Valley residents toward what they see as decades of neglect and exploitation by the rest of Los Angeles.
Even though secession lost, its symbolic victory among Valley voters "will reverberate in city politics beginning immediately," commented local historian Kevin Roderick, author of "America's Suburb: History, Lore and Literature of the San Fernando Valley."
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Proposition F to establish a new city to govern the 1.35 million residents of the San Fernando Valley, a mountain-ringed 211 square mile suburban region to the north of the Los Angeles basin, carried 50.8 percent of the voters within the proposed breakaway municipality.
In contrast, only 31.5 percent of voters within the Hollywood neighborhood, which has no natural boundaries separating it from the rest of Los Angeles, voted for Proposition H to permit Hollywood to secede. Some voters complained that they didn't know whether they lived in Hollywood or not, which was not a problem for almost anyone in the San Fernando Valley, a region sharply defined by nature.
Under the rules governing civic breakups in California, though, a majority of voters across all of Los Angeles must approve the secession of any one part. The rest of Los Angeles, however, voted an overwhelming 80.5 percent to 19.5 percent to hang on to the San Fernando Valley, which some see as a cash cow.
The median citizen of the Valley has a per capita income about one tenth higher than the typical resident of the rest of LA. If secession had passed, Valley taxpayers would have had to pay $127 million dollars in alimony to Los Angeles during the first year of separation. But the payment would have declined each year until after 20 years the remainder of LA would have ceased to get a check from the Valley.
While the median Valley resident is slightly wealthier, the great majority of extremely rich Los Angelenos live on the other side of the Hollywood Hills. These include billionaire bankrollers of Mayor James Hahn's L.A. United campaign to keep the Valley in Los Angeles such as art collector Eli Broad, and the Italian-American chairman of the Spanish-language television network Univision, A. Jerrold Perenchio. This major political benefactor (he was the largest individual contributor to California governor Gray Davis' successful re-election bid, and also one of the largest backers of his Republican rival Bill Simon) gave $900,000 in cash and free airtime on his network.
L.A. United was estimated to have outspent the pro-secession forces by a 2.3 to one margin. And much of the secession movements funding was devoted solely to Hollywood's ill-fated attempt. Gay nightclub owner Gene La Pietra put $1.3 million into Hollywood's campaign.
Valley independence had been trailing within the Valley itself, in an October L.A. Times poll. As it became clear though, that the rest of the city would not set the Valley free, some Valley voters apparently decided that they no longer had to worry about whether secession would work out well or not. Instead, they were now free to cast a protest ballot to remind City Hall of their discontents.
One East Valley woman who voted for the break-up commented, "I have no idea whether the plans for creating an entirely new city in one year would work, or whether instead we'd be plunged into chaos. But, once I knew that none of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt was relevant anymore, then I could vote to send the powers that be a message that we Valleyites are tired of being the meek stepchild. Look, we have one of the biggest concentrations of creative people in the world here in the Valley, but we have practically no museums or performing arts centers or much of anything else."
Some in the Valley thought the election result would now give impetus to compromise calls to establish a New York style borough system within sprawling Los Angeles. As defeat became inevitable, the Valley-based Los Angeles Daily News, which had been overtly crusading for Valley independence, began edging toward backing boroughs.
Pepperdine U. professor Joel Kotkin, a respected demographic analyst who lives in the East Valley, told the Daily News that there is a growing consensus of what should come next: a Los Angeles built on "more dispersed, neighborhood government."
In elections within the Valley that are now of only hypothetical interest, 62 percent of residents voted to name the would-be independent city "San Fernando Valley." The rest of the vote was fairly evenly distributed among "Valley City," "Rancho San Fernando," "Camelot," and "Mission Valley." Republican state assemblyman Keith S. Richman would have been the mayor of San Fernando Valley.
