CITY SETTLES LAWSUIT BY VALLEY VOTE.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles airport officials agreed Tuesday to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit with San Fernando Valley activists who were kicked out of the Van Nuys air show when they tried to get signatures on a secession study petition.

The settlement, approved by the Airport Commission in a closed-door meeting, will give Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment a quick infusion of cash to complete a petition drive calling for a study of Valley secession.

It also will save the city from a potentially tough court case bought by Valley VOTE and the American Civil Liberties Union. City officials already have apologized for the July incident, in which security guards and airport police forced the group's volunteers to leave a public event on public property.

``It would be difficult to defend the actions of those security guards,'' City Attorney James Hahn said in an interview Tuesday. ``It was our thinking it would be a difficult case for the city to win.''

The City Council also directed Hahn to draft guidelines telling city departments how to handle such First Amendment issues in the future.

Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close said that while the size of the settlement was smaller than the group initially wanted, settling now makes sense. If the group succeeds in its petition drive, it will need the city's help to pay for the proposed $1 million study of secession's financial effects.

``We're going to need the city's cooperation and assistance,'' Close said. ``It's tough to get that when you're suing the city.''

Although the settlement agreement is expected to be presented to the Los Angeles City Council today, it does not require the council's approval. If council members object to the deal, they could scuttle it in the next five meeting days, said Councilwoman Laura Chick. She added, however, that such an action is unlikely, saying the price is reasonable.

``I'm always sorry when taxpayer dollars have to be spent settling a lawsuit, but I'm grateful it wasn't a bigger expense,'' she said.

Studio City attorney David Fleming, a fire commissioner and prominent secession activist, helped broker the settlement.

The ACLU filed the suit on behalf of Valley VOTE on Aug. 17, charging that the city had violated the rights of the group's volunteers. Valley VOTE estimated it could have gathered 20,000 to 40,000 signatures had the volunteers been allowed to stay at Aviation Expo '98.

The organization needs 135,000 signatures of Valley voters to trigger a study by the state's Local Agency Formation Commission on whether secession is economically practical for the Valley and the rest of Los Angeles. To ensure that enough signatures prove valid, Valley VOTE hopes to gather about 180,000 before ending the campaign.

The group now has 167,000 signatures, Close said.

In its editorial pages, the Daily News has strongly endorsed Valley VOTE's drive for a public study of secession that would determine whether a breakup would be revenue-neutral to the remaining part of the city and whether the new city would be economically viable. The newspaper also has contributed $60,000 to the petition-gathering effort.

Valley VOTE leaders originally wanted to extract payment from the city for part of the proposed secession study as a condition for settling the lawsuit, but Hahn rejected the idea.

Close said case law limited the group to collecting only the amount of money needed to mend the damage caused by the city's actions.

Since the group now pays a private firm about $1.40 to collect each new signature, the settlement should provide enough cash to finish the drive, Close said. Anything left over could be used to hire consultants to work on the secession study, he said.