Commentary

Commentary/20″/dt1st/mike2nd By Cindy Miscikowski In the business world, information is power. In the proposed secession of the San Fernando Valley from the city of Los Angeles, information will also be power. It will be the raw material which fuels the feasibility study being performed by the Local Agency Formation Commission. LAFCO’s task will be to take information and use it to analyze the value of the city’s assets, to assess the scope of its debts and to assign a worth to the services it provides to its residents, wherever they live. It will determine the proportion of these assets, debts and services which rightly belong to the Valley and what portion should be assigned to the rest of the city. The objective of this process will be to determine whether the San Fernando Valley can be split from the city without causing economic harm to either area, which is the basic premise under which LAFCO must operate. To determine whether the state law’s “revenue neutral” test can be met and secession can proceed, LAFCO will need to work closely with city government in generating accurate financial data. But until recently, there was no mechanism through which that cooperative effort could occur, or through which communication between the city and LAFCO could be formally exchanged. To create such a mechanism, to establish one central clearinghouse for secession-related information and to create an entity with the authority to analyze information and release these analyses to LAFCO and the public, I proposed creation of a City Council Ad Hoc Committee on San Fernando Valley Secession. The council adopted my motion and President John Ferraro appointed me to chair this five-member special committee. My intention is for the committee which also includes council members Joel Wachs, Nate Holden, Rudy Svorinich Jr. and Nick Pacheco to scrutinize closely the issues which the leaders of Valley VOTE have presented to LAFCO. We will look at whether the Valley receives its fair share of city services and whether resources, such as public works projects, police officers and park acquisition dollars, are allotted fairly to all parts of the city. No city department’s policies or practices will be off limits and beyond the committee’s reach. The ad hoc committee’s deliberations will be a fully open process. I have asked that its meetings be televised on the city’s cable TV station, and that as many meetings be held in the Valley as members’ schedules will allow, and in the evenings when possible. Public hearings will be held at each session, where committee members will be able to hear specific concerns raised by anyone with an interest in secession. Though the committee will be the channel through which secession information flows, it will be an open channel. Information will not be withheld from the public or secession advocates, nor will it be screened. I believe the value of this committee can extend far beyond the analysis of information concerning secession. The committee can assist in the direction and development of more detailed information than the City Council has ever had on just what it costs to operate a major city. In the past, the city’s budgetary process has given the council the broad picture of departmental costs. I look forward to the ad hoc committee because it will focus a closer eye on the worth of assets and services being able to develop even more detailed information on how effectively programs are being delivered and how taxpayers can get more value for their dollars. Here’s an example of how this can work: Suppose the committee hears secession advocates express concerns that the Valley does not receive a fair allotment of police patrol cars and is actually under-policed. Though LAFCO will be interested in knowing the value of the black-and-white cars in the Police Department’s fleet and the cost of salaries paid to the officers who ride in them, the committee will be able to cast a wider net and examine afresh the city’s rationale behind deployment decisions. Through examining not only how the city assigns its various resources and programs but why, the long-range benefits to the provision of more efficient, cost-effective city services will be obvious and will enable more rational budget decisions to be made in the future, regardless of the outcome of the secession movement. I liken this ancillary benefit to the many advances which medical research was able to make from lessons learned through the U.S. space program. The key theme of the ad hoc committee must be fairness and openness. I recognize that some may be skeptical about the City Council’s involvement in the flow of information about secession. The only way this skepticism can be met is head-on, with a consistently fair and open process which hears fully the concerns of all interested parties and disseminates unbiased information based on sound analysis. My goal is to operate the committee in exactly this manner, and to allow it to provide the best deliberative efforts that our city’s democratic process is capable of delivering. Cindy Miscikowski is the Los Angeles City Council representative for the 11th District.