BREAKUP BILL FINDS CITYWIDE SUPPORT : MCCLINTOCK VOWS TO REVIVE CRUSADE.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

The bill has its roots in the San Fernando Valley, but residents from across Los Angeles told the bill's author Saturday there is support throughout the city to restore the power of self-determination to all communities.

State Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Granada Hills, introduced Assembly Bill 62 last week. The bill would give communities the right to vote to leave the metropolis, and it would strip the Los Angeles City Council of its veto power over such secession efforts.

A similar bill failed in the last legislative session, but about two dozen residents from the Alliance for Self-Determination - a group including members from South Central Los Angeles, Venice, West Los Angeles and the Valley - assured McClintock that the bill has strong grass-roots backing.

``We all agree that we want the right to vote (on secession),'' said Jeff Brain, the coalition's chairman, during a meeting in Hollywood with McClintock that was part rally, part strategy session.

McClintock said he would take the message that the issue ``transcends any community boundaries'' back to Sacramento and also told the group: ``I am looking forward to working with you on this battle.''

The original version of the bill, authored by McClintock's predecessor Paula Boland, was first revised and ultimately killed earlier this year, largely because it lacked support from Senate Democrats.

Although McClintock's ``The Right to Vote'' bill, like the original Boland bill, allows individual communities to decide on a split without requiring a citywide vote, McClintock dismissed concerns that his bill would suffer the same fate.

McClintock instead told the group that the campaign would be waged mainly outside the Legislature, and he called on residents to lobby their politicians and pressure them through the media.

The fact that the city of Los Angeles represents many constituents ``is obviously going to have a role in their political calculations and the way they view the political viability of their own positions,'' McClintock said.

``I really doubt that many legislators have their feet in concrete on this issue,'' he said.

Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, and state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, D-Los Angeles, have said they support McClintock's bill, while Assembly members Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino, and Wally Knox, D-Los Angeles, have said they are opposed to it.

Reached by phone Saturday, Kuehl said she believes the possibility that several individual communities could seek the right to vote on secession only strengthens her opposition to AB 62 in its current form.

Kuehl said she would want residents to vote on any splits on a citywide basis, a requirement most members of the alliance find objectionable.

``If a number of communities are interested in seceding from the city and establishing their own cityhood, it is possible that the city of Los Angeles as we know it would completely disintegrate overnight,'' Kuehl said. ``It seems as though the loss to all the residents of Los Angeles could be severe and they should be able to vote on it.''

While the City Council has yet to take a formal position on the latest bill, officials have said they expect to back efforts to mandate a citywide vote on any secession attempts.

But one by one, community activists Saturday told McClintock they opposed the concept of a citywide vote, stating that the requirement would surely kill any secession efforts.

``The closer (the vote) can be to an identifiable neighborhood, the more likely government is going to be responsive,'' said South Central resident Adrian Dove, a member of the Congress of Racial Equality.

Saul Grammatico, a community activist from West Los Angeles, told the group: ``I think it is better to have a local decision because . . . the problems that exist in the Westside are not similar to the ones in the Valley or South Central.''

Residents agreed Saturday that communities would not necessarily choose to secede, but that merely having the ability to break away would serve to make local government more responsive to community needs.

Brain told the group that McClintock's bill simply represented an attempt to restore a right Los Angeles residents once had.

The City Council won veto power over secession efforts in 1978 after the state Legislature gave the council the authority following an attempt by Valley residents to break away from the city, Brain said.

McClintock said it may take weeks before his bill reaches various Assembly committees for consideration, but that he will continue to seek support from fellow lawmakers when he returns to Sacramento.

``Before this is over, it may not be AB 62 that is the vehicle,'' McClintock said, adding that he would ask the State Attorney General to examine the legality of the City Council's veto power. ``It is not an Assembly bill. It is a movement.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: State lawmaker Tom McClintock tells residents the fight for secession will occur outside Sacramento.

John McCoy/Daily News