CAMPAIGNS' FINAL PUSH VOLUNTEERS HIT BRICKS, PHONES.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

The campaign against San Fernando Valley secession flooded the streets with hundreds of union volunteers Monday, while secession supporters wound up their campaign with a lower-profile series of phone calls, door-to-door canvassing and e-mail messages.

In the final day of campaigning before polls open today, Mayor James Hahn crisscrossed the Valley and rallied members of municipal unions to defeat secession.

The Valley Independence Committee and other pro-secession groups did not hold any public rallies Monday, saying they were concentrating on a grass-roots effort to turn out cityhood supporters at the polls today.

``We've got hundreds of people on the phones, people walking the streets, waving signs ...,'' said Richard Katz, co-chairman of the Valley Independence Committee. ``Our people are very optimistic considering the beating we've been taking.''

While secession supporters quietly fanned out over the Valley - divided into four quadrants by the pro-secession campaign - Hahn and labor union members clapped, waved signs and boisterously hit the streets in South Los Angeles and the Valley to urge votes against secession.

``The mayor has been all over Los Angeles today and tomorrow,'' said Kam Kuwata, Hahn's adviser on secession. ``We're doing everything that a campaign does. We have thousands of people on the phone and ringing doorbells.''

The anti-secession campaign is broadcasting commercials through Election Day, while the pro-secession campaign, with less than one-fifth as much money raised, limited its advertising to cable television. Katz said the campaign is buttressing its efforts with e-mail ``blasts'' to thousands of people.

Hahn visited the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda at lunchtime, appeared at a union rally in North Hollywood at 2 p.m. and finished his day with a speech to cheering union members at Los Angeles Valley College.

At the Jewish Home for the Aging, where voter turnout routinely approaches 100 percent, Hahn told an audience of more than 300 seniors that Los Angeles provides a full range of services to the elderly and that splitting the city could jeopardize those services.

Hahn then spoke individually to residents as they ate chicken and mashed potatoes, and found a range of opinions.

``I'm very much against you,'' Marcia Marks, 89, and a Valley resident since 1955 told Hahn. ``We have lots of money in the Valley, and it's not coming back to us.''

Hahn replied, ``I think you're entitled to more, and we're working on it.''

At the Valley College rally sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Hahn led sign-waving union members in chanting ``We love L.A.'' and vowed to improve city services after the election. Outside the rally, about a dozen candidates for Valley offices shouted ``Free the Valley!'' and called union members ``Hahn's pawns.''

``We can hold our heads up high and be proud that we've run a very positive campaign,'' said candidate Frank Sheftel, standing behind a ``Yes on F'' banner at the Valley College entrance. ``I can honestly say the mayor hasn't done that.''

Federation of Labor spokeswoman Barbara Dab said about 2,500 union members have run phone banks and walked door-to-door to urge union households to vote against secession. She said labor unions have provided most of the ground troops in the anti-secession campaign's final push.

City Council President Alex Padilla, who spoke to union members at Valley College, said unions are a key part of the coalition against secession.

``These unions collectively represent the vast majority of city employees who have a big stake in how the city is going to run in the future,'' he said.

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Photo:

Yes on F volunteers Rachael Elizabeth, center, and Lynn Rinker, right, talk to Todd Mazer about secession in Encino.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer