ANTI-CITYHOOD TACTICS CHANGE OPPONENT PUTS LAWSUIT ON HOLD PENDING OUTCOME OF SECESSION ELECTION.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

A San Fernando Valley secession opponent who filed a lawsuit to try to overturn the cityhood plan has given up attempts to block the Nov. 5 election and instead is focusing on invalidating it if secession passes, his attorney said Monday.

The attorney for Robert Hunt, a municipal union official who is acting as an individual, filed a brief on Friday arguing that environmental studies for the cityhood plan were inadequate and asking the court to invalidate secession, if it passes, so that new environmental studies can be performed.

Hunt is the general counsel for the Service Employees International Union Local 347, which opposes secession, but he and union officials have said he filed the suit as a private individual.

Secessionists said the original environmental studies were adequate and called the lawsuit just a political tactic, not action based on genuine environmental concerns.

``It was incredibly arrogant and presumptuous to think they could keep the people from voting,'' said Richard Katz, co-chairman of the Valley Independence Committee.

Katz agrees with the original environmental report, performed by a consultant for the Local Agency Formation Commission, that found secession itself would have minimal effects on the environment because a new city would, at least initially, keep most of the laws of the city of Los Angeles in place. When the new city later made decisions affecting the environment, those decisions would be subject to individual environmental studies at that time.

When Hunt first filed suit in June his law firm - Kane, Ballmer & Berkman - asked Los Angeles Superior Court to prevent the election from taking place until the new studies could be performed.

But attorney June Ailin said the firm changed strategy, before the court made any rulings, after concluding that a judge was unlikely to block the election. ``We'd have to show not only a reasonable likelihood we'd prevail on the merits, but also that there would be some irreparable harm if we didn't get an injunction,'' Ailin said. ``Since it's not like anything concrete in the universe would change, and since elections can be invalidated after the fact if there's some problem, we came to the conclusion ... we would not spend the effort.''

A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 18, and the firm will try to get the election invalidated if secession has passed.

Hunt's brief argues that a new city would be a general-law city, lacking the latitude in adopting ordinances that charter-city Los Angeles possesses, and so could not initially adopt all of the ordinances of Los Angeles.

In a brief, Hunt also argues that the environmental report was inadequate because ``it is based on faulty premises as to the laws (a) Valley city may apply, the number of employees (a) Valley city will hire and the effect of the special reorganization on housing.''

Hunt also argues that environmental impacts of new government facilities and alternatives in the new city and the remaining Los Angeles were not adequately analyzed.