CARVING UP THE VALLEY; REDISTRICTING OF '86 DILUTED VOICE, DIVIDED HEART OF VAN NUYS.

Byline: Rick Orlov

AN effort 12 years ago to empower Latinos turned into a political catastrophe for the San Fernando Valley after the untimely death of a popular member of the Los Angeles City Council.

Efforts to create a Latino district meant putting incumbent Councilmen John Ferraro and Mike Woo in the same district, but when Valley Councilman Howard Finn died, the political dynamic changed dramatically.

The council moved swiftly to protect Woo and Ferraro by giving them each a district by carving up the Valley in a way that nearly defies description.

By putting parts of the Valley in seven districts with only four held by Valley-based members, the council diluted the political power of 1.2 million people and weakened the influence of its constituents and their values on the city as a whole.

``I know we made the Valley angry,'' said Bruce Cain of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, who oversaw that year's efforts.

``First, we took Mike Woo and moved him into the Valley. Then we pushed (Councilman Joel) Wachs up into the northern Valley and then we put two others associated with the city into the Valley.

``At the same time, the Valley lost one whole district so we could reconfigure one to make a Latino district. It solved a lot of inner-city problems but left the Valley very unhappy.''

Reapportionment, the arcane art of drafting the borders of political districts, is always an exercise in the power of incumbent politicians.

Community interests often come last.

The 1986 reapportionment was made necessary by a federal government order to redraw district lines to provide for a Latino seat on the council, a task that was made easier for the politicians by Finn's death. The situation did not change much in the most recent redistricting, approved in 1992.

For Valley activists, much of the current sentiment driving secession efforts date to the 1986 reapportionment.

Van Nuys is the Valley community most divided: The 1986 reapportionment carved it up among six council members. The 1992 reapportionment puts it in five districts.

``What it means is it takes us five times as long to get anything done,'' said Don Schultz of the Van Nuys Homeowners Association.

``We have to talk to five different council members for simple things. For instance, we wanted to get community signs for Van Nuys. We had to go to five different council offices, get five different approvals. It took two years.''

Beyond that, Schultz said the carving up of Valley communities reflects a dismissive attitude toward its residents.

``When you chop up a community like Van Nuys - the government center in the heart of the Valley - then you can do that to the entire Valley,'' Schultz said.

City Council President John Ferraro said responsibility for the carving up of the Valley is not local.

``Sometimes you have to draw weird lines to meet the federal government's requirements,'' Ferraro said. ``And Van Nuys is one of those areas. But I wouldn't complain about having five members. That means you have five voices speaking for you.''

Councilman Richard Alatorre, the acknowledged reapportionment expert on the council who was chairman of the committee developing the 1986 and 1992 lines, said the public had to recognize the realities of the Voting Rights Act when it comes to drawing boundaries.

``If you're looking for aesthetic beauty in a reapportionment plan, it's not going to happen,'' Alatorre said. ``The shape of a district has nothing to do with if it's a good plan or a bad plan. It has to do with one man, one vote and how you achieve that.''

Alatorre and Berkeley's Cain also wonder about language contained in a measure by Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, that will require consideration of communities of interest in the next reapportionment. It is an effort to keep communities together not for aesthetic reasons but so that community values and interests aren't easily ignored.

``You have to tell me what that means,'' Alatorre said. ``A community of interest is not a legal finding. You attempt to look into a community of interest as one of the factors, but the most important is the federal guidelines.''

Cain also questioned whether the term community of interest would have any legal standing.

``First you have to define it,'' Cain said. ``The technical definition includes geographical boundaries. But you also have to look at occupation, race, religion. The question is, which kind of interest should have priority over another?''

And, he said, in the end, most reapportionment plans end up with no one happy.

``It's a compromise,'' Cain said. ``It's hard to get people excited about it and you end up with a compromise that can pass court muster but leaves everyone else unhappy.''

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Map: (Color) SAN FERNANDO VALLEY - LOS ANGELES CITY BOUNDARIES

Dionisio Munoz/Daily News