Mayor Renews Anti-Secession Plea

WOODLAND HILLS — Calling the San Fernando Valley “vibrant” and “better than ever,” Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan lashed out at the local school bureaucracy Friday and renewed his pleas to Valley business leaders to reject secession as the answer to local problems.

Riordan’s fourth annual State of the Valley speech at the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.’s conference in Woodland Hills sounded all the familiar themes of his administration--his commitment to getting more police officers on the streets, improving education and reforming the city’s charter.

But some who support political secession of the Valley from the city of Los Angeles--a move that would create the nation’s sixth-largest city--faulted Riordan for neglecting to mention issues of local concern, such as breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District and formation of a separate transportation agency in the Valley.

Several hundred business and community leaders smiled and clapped during the address. But the second question to Riordan after the speech was on secession, which a group of local activists is about to promote by filing petitions signed by 190,000 Valley residents who want the controversial idea studied. Under a law passed last year that stripped the City Council of its veto power over secession, the petition drive is the first step toward a vote on the question.

“The mayor is a good cheerleader, but we are beyond the cheerleading stage,” said one small-businessman, John Berry of Canoga Oil & Lube, after the speech.

“I was a little disappointed,” said attorney Bob Scott, a prominent figure pushing for a study of Valley secession. “It was a very moderate speech. It didn’t break any new ground. . . . But I think he is beginning to understand and share our frustrations.”

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Telling the group that “there is no place in the world I love more than the San Fernando Valley,” Riordan opened the speech by touting his own efforts to improve public safety.

He credited expansion of the Police Department from 7,400 officers to 10,000 during his administration, and structural changes in the department that have boosted the number of officers on the beats. “Violent crime is down 50%,” he said. “That alone has had a profound effect. Business is up, volunteerism is up, and business and industry are rediscovering the Valley.”

But moving swiftly into what’s wrong with the city, Riordan struck again, as he has in nearly all recent public appearances, at the education bureaucracy. He lashed out at a system that he said promotes children who have not mastered grade-level skills, and school bureaucrats who engage in a “dance of the lemons” by transferring incompetent administrators from school to school instead of firing them.

Because of the problems in education, “our economy is, and will be, denied the quality work force we need,” Riordan said. Efforts such as primary centers, the after-school program L.A.’s BEST and a new program called “Read to Me” which promotes reading aloud to children in public libraries, are part of the cure, he said.

Riordan’s call for support of his own hand-picked slate of school board candidates was the only policy declaration in his speech to be interrupted by sustained applause from his listeners.

The response was tepid when he launched into a discussion of the ongoing charter reform efforts. Two commissions, one appointed by the City Council and one elected, and backed by the mayor, are working on divergent proposals to reform the city’s dense and complicated charter.

Riordan made a qualified pitch for the current reform proposals, lauding especially those efforts to assign greater power to his office.

“What we need is to have executive and management power with the mayor,” he said, arguing that department heads need to be accountable to the mayor “on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis.”

Riordan called Los Angeles “a great city.”

“That’s why, while I support citizens’ right to self-determination, I do not believe secession is the answer for the Valley,” Riordan said. “Even if you are for secession, you should be for charter reform.”

Riordan underscored his point with a dramatic flourish--calling the notoriously critical Scott up to the podium to give him a T-shirt that read: “Los Angeles: A New Charter for a New Century.”

The meeting was the annual gathering of the Valley’s largest and most influential business group. The Los Angeles Times was among the sponsors.

The audience included many well-known critics of city government, and many who either publicly support secession or--echoing VICA’s official position on the subject--support a study of the issue.

Scott said the mayor should have talked about breaking up the school district in addition to revamping its leadership, and criticized Riordan for not speaking in support of the proposal for a separate transportation district.

Said Marvin Selter, immediate past chairman of VICA: “I’m very disappointed. I don’t believe charter reform will happen. . . . It is just moving the furniture around in the house, that’s all.”

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Jeff Brain, president of Valley VOTE, the group that has gathered the secession petitions, didn’t attend the speech, but said, “I’ve heard from a number of people who attended, and they were not swayed.”

Although Riordan is popular in the Valley, that’s not the issue, Brain said.

“We like the mayor, we hear his words, but day in and day out, the decisions being made are not favorable to the Valley. . . . We are getting snubbed in all directions,” he said.

“On charter reform, I’m actually disappointed that the mayor thinks it’s going so well. Nobody in the Valley thinks it’s going well.”

City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who attended, said the speech “reiterated the themes of his [Riordan’s] administration.”

The mayor’s education message will resonate with voters, she said. “But I still think there is a long and difficult road to get to where we need to be.”

She credited Riordan with having improved connections to discontented Valley leaders. “There is now a relationship between the mayor and key Valley leaders; they have agreed to disagree,” she said.

A typical response to the speech was that of Michael Herson, owner of Fume-a-Pest in Encino.

Herson was full of praise for Riordan, and completely unmoved by the mayor’s admonitions against secession. “I think he’s a very effective mayor, and I liked his attitude toward education,” he said. “But I would support secession. . . . The city is just too large.”