CITY PANEL SEEKS MORE DATA ON VARIOUS BOROUGH SCENARIOS.

Byline: - Mariel Garza

With the deadline looming less than a month away, members of a Los Angeles City Council panel Tuesday asked for more information about all their options to put a measure creating boroughs in the city on the Nov. 5 ballot.

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who chairs the council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, asked the City Attorney's Office for a report on all the various scenarios for creating a boroughs commission and on how power would be distributed through the city and the levels of government under a boroughs plan.

Whatever plan city officials eventually come up with, they have only until July 17 to get a proposal before the City Council. The council would have to vote on the matter by Aug. 2 to meet an Aug. 9 deadline to get a proposal to county elections officials for the Nov. 5 ballot.

``I still think we can pull it together,'' Hahn said.

But even if the council doesn't act on a specific plan by Aug. 2, the boroughs issue wouldn't necessarily be dead, she said.

The council could choose to put a simple question on the ballot, asking residents if they are interested in boroughs, and then work out all the details later, Hahn said, though that's not her preference.

One of the big questions facing the panel is whether to put a measure on the ballot to create a borough-implementing commission - essentially a commission to revise the City Charter - or to appoint a committee that would make recommendations to the City Council.

Also in question are whether the boroughs would be based on equal populations, on communities of interest or on geographic areas and how neighborhood councils would interact with borough government.

Hahn said she won't support a borough plan that would endanger the fairly new neighborhood councils.

The borough proposal before the panel was submitted by Wendy Greuel as an alternative to the possible secession of the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood, which will be decided in the November election.

Greuel's plan calls for the creation of a commission that would hash out the details of forming boroughs. The commission would essentially act as a charter commission - since it would propose revising the Los Angeles City Charter.

Each boroughs would have some budgetary power and would direct the delivery of city services in its area.

Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg has proposed a detailed plan that would create nine boroughs, scrap the 15-member City Council and replace it with a board of borough presidents.

Critics have assailed the proposals, calling them last-minute attempts to confuse voters so they won't vote for secession.

But Hahn defended the boroughs idea.

``I'd like to give voters another choice,'' she said. ``I don't think it's confusing to them.''

Greuel was attending another committee meeting, but her spokesman Matt Szabo said he is confident that city officials will do what it takes to work out a borough plan by the deadline.

``Something's going to happen,'' he said. ``There's going to be consensus.''

City Clerk Michael Carey noted that even if city officials meet all the deadlines, county officials might choose not to put the boroughs measure on the ballot in the end.

Carey said county officials have expressed concern that with all the state, county and local issues, coupled with the secession measures, there might not be room on the 300-item ballot for a boroughs measure. If that happened, the county Board of Supervisors could vote to leave it off the ballot.

In that case, the city could hold its own election - essentially just set up a voting booth next to the county's booth. But that option would be expensive, Carey said.