LAFCO—Untangling the Tale

lafco executive officer attempts to determine the true cost of a municipality while fending off charges of conflict of interest On Feb. 15, the Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County (LAFCO), the state panel charged with weighing the feasibility of secession of the San Fernando Valley, received the long-awaited data it had requested from the city detailing a breakdown of its revenue sources during the 1998-1999 fiscal year. With data now in hand, the nine-member commission can move forward with its study. Meanwhile, LAFCO Executive Officer Larry J. Calemine has come under fire for accepting what he calls “advisor” fees from developers in return for his guidance in getting City Hall approval for Valley projects. LAFCO conducted an investigation of its top executive in an effort to muzzle talk of impropriety and, as a result, Calemine has agreed to obtain the panel’s prior consent for all future consulting work. It has been reported that Calemine was paid $10,000 for consulting work he performed for a lawyer who has argued the case for secession before the LAFCO commission. He has been asked by the city to register as a lobbyist or explain the nature of his outside business. So far, he has declined to do so, insisting the work he does as an “advisor” is legitimate and separate from his role on the commission. At least one commissioner has publicly stated that the panel knew of Calemine’s consulting work and did not consider it a conflict of interest. Calemine would not answer questions regarding the investigation or his outside sources of income. He did agree to talk to reporter Jacqueline Fox about the LAFCO study; acrimony among the commission, city officials and secessionists; and the next step in the secession process. Question: You have a high profile in the Valley business community. How do you reconcile discussions of a possible conflict of interest there? Answer: I didn’t know I had a high profile. I’ve been very active in the community, no question about that. But, there’s nothing to reconcile. I’m a paid professional and I interpret the government code and I follow the policies on procedure. There is no conflict of interest. My personal opinion on any given subject has nothing to do with the way I conduct my job. Q: As LAFCO’s executive officer, you’ve seemingly taken on the role of mediator between city officials and secessionists, with a whole lot of finger pointing on both sides. How do you reconcile that role? A: I never thought my job would become that of mediator, but I guess that comes with the job. The fact is, this is just a massive amount of material to decipher. The government code says we have the right to ask the city for information to process an application, but we have no control over how long the city takes to accomplish the task. But (the city) has now done its job, and we have enough information to go forward and put together our fiscal analysis. Q: Originally, the data you requested from the city was to be released in August 2000. What created the hold-up? A: This has never been done before. The city does not have a comprehensive or centralized accounting system. We got preliminary data from the city in December, which was labeled “subject to change,” but how in the hell can our consultants work with preliminary data? The city collected $4 billion in revenue for the year they analyzed, but it didn’t include the source of nearly $1 billion of that money. So we requested that they go back and bring us a more complete report. Q: What is the timeline now for issuing the final report? A: We hope to have the report complete by the end of March for distribution to my commission, and then make it available to the applicants and the city sometime in April. Q: What can we expect the final LAFCO report to show? A: Applicants would have a final set of data reflecting what revenues the city of Los Angeles generated from its programs and funds in the three different secession study areas, the Valley being one of them. And basic data and numbers for each department’s municipal services and what the costs of those services would be. Q: What can secession advocates expect to see happen over the next few months? A: Once our final fiscal analysis is complete, applicants will have an opportunity to review it and come back to us with their final application. How long they will take to do that, and what they will come back to us with, we just don’t know at this point. We would then begin the process of holding public hearings and finally LAFCO would make a decision on (the feasibility) of secession. Q: In the meantime, pro-secessionists have said they won’t wait for the report, and will push for a ballot measure in 2002 with or without a final recommendation. Would that render your commission’s work meaningless? A: No, because we are a state agency and what they want to do or not do as far as a ballot measure goes doesn’t change what our job is. And we think they will wait for this report. Q: What do you think the reaction to the report will be, considering secessionists have hinted the findings won’t be valid or taken seriously? A: How could so-called secessionists assume the data coming forth would not be valid if they haven’t seen it? I think that when the final report is done and they have seen it, they will see it’s valid. But whether they will agree or disagree or think it’s valid, I can’t say, because I haven’t even seen the report yet. Q: How long have you been with LAFCO, and when and how did you come to be its executive officer? A: I’ve been with LAFCO for 10 years. The first five years I served as an alternate commissioner, then I was appointed by the nine commissioners to serve as their executive officer. Q: All six major mayoral candidates oppose a Valley breakup. How might the outcome of upcoming local elections influence LAFCO’s final recommendation? A: I can’t predict what the views on our report will be. I’m sure there will be public discussion on our final recommendation, but LAFCO operates under a government code section and the local politics of the mayoral races won’t play into it at all. They can make public comment like anybody else, but it has no bearing on what LAFCO does. Q: You recently attended the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley symposium on secession. Did you walk away from that feeling you learned something substantial? A: They had a lot of experts on their panels who gave us a fine presentation, but actually they did not deal with a real working solution for how to accomplish those means. They did not deal with the mechanics of some of the ideas presented, like the borough system. But then, all information is good and at least there was dialogue.