FINALLY, THE VALLEY WILL COUNT AREA BREAKOUTS OF STATISTICS TO BE MADE AVAILABLE SOON.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Sacramento Bureau

The San Fernando Valley failed to become its own city in 2002, but it did win the right to be treated like one - statistically.

This year, for the first time, state agencies will issue statistics that treat the Valley as a city.

Based on a bill that became law Jan. 1, state agencies that issue statistics with a city-by-city breakdown will have to count the Valley as the equivalent of its own city, with the first stats expected to be issued in the next month or two.

Valley business leaders are eagerly awaiting the information, which they say will help them sell the region to potential developers and corporations looking to locate there.

Daniel Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge, said obtaining retail sales and tax data will help local economists and business leaders track the region's economic growth.

``Trends in retail sales are one of the main indicators of economic health in an area,'' said Blake, who was involved in pushing for the bill.

``Tracking that would tell people, developers, government agencies and so on a lot about what's going on in the economy. We want to get those numbers and make them available to general businesses out there, especially small businesses.''

And, just like in the 2002 secession campaign, Hollywood is again following the Valley's lead. At the request of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, has introduced a bill to create a statistical district out of Hollywood.

``It's something that every independent city in the state has,'' said Chamber president Leron Gubler. ``It is a very important tool for economic development to have statistical data. We are constantly receiving requests for statistical data, and we always have to tell them it's not available.''

Additionally, Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, has a similar bill to create a statistical district out of the Antelope Valley.

Some state agencies will not be producing the Valley statistics because they break down numbers only by county or region.

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, said he plans to wait about six months to give state agencies some time before checking to see how they are complying with the law.

``I don't know whether they're misreading the law, but certainly we'll follow up on that.''

Officials with the state Employment Development Department said the employment data they produce for cities are based on federal standards and funding, and the federal guidelines do not call for such a breakdown so they do not have an easy way of obtaining the data.

``We can't break it out,'' said EDD spokeswoman Suzanne Schroeder. ``We have to do it the way the (federal) Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us to. And we don't have any money to do a special study to break out (figures) for the San Fernando Valley.''

CSUN's Blake said those numbers are not very accurate since they are extrapolated from the 2000 Census and don't reflect recent demographic changes.

The first and most sought-after report with Valley breakdowns will come from the state Board of Equalization, which issues quarterly taxable sales reports with details on apparel, food and automobile sales.

The report covers the period of Jan. 1 to March 31 and will be issued soon, according to board spokeswoman Anita Gore. Because changes would be needed to the software and calculation methods that would easily cost several hundred thousand dollars, she said, the board is working with the city of Los Angeles on alternate methods that will produce close approximations, as allowed by the Levine law.

``It is my understanding that the data for the San Fernando Valley will be incorporated as is required by law,'' Gore said. ``The law allows for the Board of Equalization to work with Los Angeles and make it work. It doesn't quite fit neatly into our system, but we're offering some adjustments to the way we calculate things in order to be able to extrapolate.''

The state Department of Justice will also be issuing a 2005 crime index for the first time with the Valley broken out separately, but it will not be available until July 2006.

The 2004 index will be issued in July 2005, but will not include the Valley as a separate district. However, most of those figures have already been available for years from the Los Angeles Police Department, which publishes statistics from its Valley Bureau.

Some state agencies have already been producing the figures for years.

In the 1970s, a bill was passed that asked state agencies to produce separate data for the Valley, but it was on a voluntary basis and depended heavily on voluntary cooperation from the city of Los Angeles.

The state Department of Finance's demographic unit has been voluntarily complying since then, producing population estimates for the Valley based on the federal census.

Harrison Sheppard, [phone]

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com