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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

SECESSION—Alarc?n Drafts Governing Plan

Sen. Richard Alarc & #243;n, who represents the 20th District, has submitted a draft proposal for legislation that, if made into law, would supercede the proposed plan for how the government of a new Valley city would be structured. Although the plan, Alarc & #243;n said, is getting positive feedback from various sectors of the Valley business community, there are some who say it calls for far too many layers of government for what would become the sixth largest city in the country. Under current state law a new Valley city government would have 15 city council members and a separately elected mayor,a model that closely resembles that of Los Angeles now. All of the positions would be paid and full time. Alarc & #243;n’s plan, however, calls for the creation of nine district city council positions and six citywide council positions in order to, as he put it, entice a broader sampling of candidates to run for office. Under the Alarc & #243;n proposal, the mayor and a vice mayor would be chosen from the two top-vote getters in the citywide council race. Those positions would be full-time as would the citywide council seats. The district council members would be part timers. “I think this is the kind of system that would help build city leadership,” said Alarc & #243;n, who added that he is neither for or against a breakup of the city. “I want to ensure that there’s a good blend of people who represent various interests in terms of job categories.” Alarc & #243;n is also proposing that the mayor be given title of council president so that he or she would have voting powers and would also be forced to operate in full disclosure of the rest of the council. “To do that really promotes openness,” said Alarc & #243;n. “The mayor would have to say what his (or her) position is from the get go and make decisions and opinions in the public light.” Finally, Alarc & #243;n said the citywide seats, which would have broader authority over district seats, would also provide a haven for sitting council representatives, such as Alex Padilla and Richard Zine, who would likely lose their seats if the voters approve a secession initiative next November. In order to sit on the council representatives must be residents of Los Angeles. The district seats, said Alarc & #243;n, would also provide an alternative to those executives who want to hold public office but don’t want to give up their full time jobs to do so. “Under the current system, you can’t sit on the city council in L.A. and keep your job,” said Alarc & #243;n. “So we often lose a lot of good people or fail to attract quality candidates.” Council President Alex Padilla, who opposes a breakup but supports a secession initiative, has repeatedly said he would not run for a Valley council seat. Padilla was out of town and unavailable for comment. David Gershwin, his communications deputy, said his boss would not be interested in Alarc & #243;n’s new plan either. “He’s already said he would never run for a Valley office because it would run contrary to everything he has said he would do to keep Los Angeles whole,” said Gershwin. Gershwin added that Alarc & #243;n’s model is based on smaller incorporated cities, such as Calabasas and Malibu, and that the structure is too weak to support a government for a city as large as the Valley would be. “It’s a bad idea, especially when you consider the workload the Valley officers would have in front of them,” Gershwin said. Councilman Dennis Zine, who is serving his first term, agreed. He said neighborhood councils are supposed to be the answer to district representation, and that creating district seats on top of citywide seats only sets up extra layers of bureaucracy.” But when pressed on the issue, Zine said he’d run for a Valley seat if he lost his current one and the climate was right. “I do not intend to be a lifelong politician,” said Zine, who represents the Valley’s third district. “But if the constituents agreed that I had the qualifications and brought to the table the kinds of ideas that would be best for the Valley, then yes I’d run.” But Alarc & #243;n said the idea is for district representatives to work closely with neighborhood councils, not strip them of their voice on community issues. “I’m anticipating that a new Valley city would maintain its neighborhood councils,” said Alarc & #243;n. “And they would work with district and citywide council members. But if we don’t have a secession, then neighborhood councils would be there because they are supposed to fill that void between government and the concerns of the citizens.” Harvey Englander, a political consultant and senior vice president and general manager of the MWW Group, called Alarc & #243;n’s plan a “hair-brained” scheme that would never pass muster with the voters. He said the new Valley city would have to have a government based on averages for the 10 largest cities across the country, which is about 15-17 council members and a mayor. Anything less than that, he said, would undermine the whole idea of better representation. “The 15-council member plan makes a lot of sense, but they all have to be equal and representative of their individual districts,” said Englander. “This at-large, part time, full time system is nothing but a way to create more gridlock,” said Englander. Former State Assemblyman Richard Katz agreed, adding that there needs to be a larger, more level playing field. “The six citywide positions would obviously wind up in the hands of politicians with access to large sums of money and this plan would change the nature of the kind of representation that groups for secession are pushing for,” said Katz. Under the current council system for all of Los Angeles including the Valley, each of the 14 council members represent roughly 300,000 constituents. Under secessionists’ plan, each of the 15 council members would represent approximately 100,000 constituents. Katz also said he thought the plan would backfire, creating a class system among political leaders and putting the part-time council members under the boot heels of the full timers,which many Valley sessesionists say is how residents here are now treated by Los Angeles. Alarc & #243;n said he agreed that there are elements of his proposal that need to be fine tuned. But he added that he thinks it makes more sense than simply transferring a much-criticized governmental system in Los Angeles over to the new Valley city. “One of the reasons I’m proposing this is I’m trying to reduce the contention during the campaign races and guarantee that the top six people who run for offices will have the full time jobs,” said Alarc & #243;n. “It’s a proposal that certainly needs to be tightened up but I’m very interested in crafting something that makes better sense than what is now on the table.” Alarc & #243;n said the State Legislative Council wouldn’t likely have time to draft a measure until after Jan 1. Unless Alarc & #243;n could get an emergency bill pushed through, any measure passed in 2002 wouldn’t become law until 2003, long after the planned vote on secession. “Getting an emergency bill through is very difficult to accomplish, but not impossible,” said Katz. Richard Close, chairman of Valley VOTE, the group leading the cause for Valley cityhood, said his organization hadn’t heard of the proposal and had no formal position on it. On a personal note, however, Close said it sounded like a plan that needed revision but attempts to address some important concerns. “One of those concerns is finding a position for some of the existing council members from Los Angeles who represent the San Fernando Valley,” said Close. “Others realize that this is a gigantic task of being one of the first council members and would like to spend full time on it, and need to be paid accordingly. So it’s an intriguing method that would deal with enough of these issues.” Katz disagreed, saying he didn’t believe in setting up governments based on the needs of particular individuals. Close also downplayed criticism that Alarc & #243;n’s plan would undermine the role of neighborhood councils, even though there is still not one neighborhood council up and running in the Valley, and the indication is that it could be five-to-10 years before they are fully implemented. “Neighborhood councils are different,” said Close. “They are based on neighborhoods, and there’s probably 200 or 300 neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley. So they are very different processes: one is a city legislature, the other is a neighborhood group. And I think that even (Mayor James) Hahn would agree, you need a combination of both neighborhood councils and local elected representatives.”

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