REPORT—City Submits Info LAFCO Wanted Six Months Ago

The Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County (LAFCO) has received the long-awaited data it requested from the city of Los Angeles to complete its feasibility study of San Fernando Valley secession. LAFCO received the data Feb. 5, nearly six months after the original deadline for completion. A preliminary draft, which purports to show the breakdown of revenue generated by the city in the Valley, Harbor area and parts of Los Angeles for fiscal year 1998-99, was rejected by LAFCO’s board of commissioners in December. According to LAFCO Executive Officer Larry J. Calemine, the original data was inconclusive and the city was directed to revise its findings. LAFCO intends to use the data to prepare its final report on how a breakup of the city would work out financially. LAFCO’s final report is expected to be ready for public consumption sometime this month. Valley VOTE, the local secession group that initially pushed for the study, intends to use the LAFCO report to make its final proposal for a ballot initiative on secession in 2002. But Valley VOTE chairman Richard Close, who also happens to be one of the nine LAFCO commissioners preparing the secession study, said the new data is still inconclusive because it doesn’t specifically pinpoint revenues collected in the Valley. “The city’s information is not substantially different from the draft that was released in December,” said Close, who said he was speaking to the Business Journal in his capacity as Valley VOTE chairman, not a LAFCO commissioner. LAFCO is an autonomous commission said to have a neutral position on the secession issue. Valley VOTE, said Close, is also neutral. He called Valley VOTE a “pro-study” group. Close said the data did not specifically identify the full range of revenue collected by the city for Valley-area municipal services and programs, which contributed to the city’s roughly $4.4 billion it received in the 1998-99 fiscal year. Calemine declined to comment on the data or Close’s view of it, saying only, “It’s in the hands of our financial advisors,” and, “What do you want me to do? Contradict one of my own commissioners?” Calemine has recently taken heat from the city and was also investigated by the commission for outside work he’s done for developers with strong Valley ties. As a result, he’s agreed to obtain prior consent from LAFCO commissioners before agreeing to more consulting work. “They gave me a clean bill of health and I volunteered to do so,” Calemine said. What LAFCO requested on behalf of Valley VOTE is detailed data showing how much revenue the Valley contributes to the city’s coffers. Assuming it is as significant as many pro-secessionists believe, it would support the argument for a breakup. According to Close, LAFCO is gathering data from other sources, including the Los Angeles County Tax Assessor’s office, which he said should augment the city data so that a final report could be competed on time. Those studies are being financed through a $2.6 million grant LAFCO received from the state, he said. “So even though the city’s information is still incomplete and inconclusive, that should not be a problem,” Close said. “The bottom line is, we are still on target for getting an initiative on the ballot by November 2002.”