LATINOS WARNED BREAKUP MAY HURT; NEW CITY COULD DIM INFLUENCE, SOME SAY.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

At the first gathering of San Fernando Valley Latino community leaders to consider Valley secession from Los Angeles, speakers Saturday warned that Latinos would lose political clout and electoral gains.

More than 50 Latino community leaders and residents concerned with the direction of the Valley secession movement met with a panel of university professors, redistricting experts and other officials who questioned the motives behind secession and its impact on Latinos.

``If the Valley secedes, Latinos in the Valley would go from an emerging majority to a clear minority cut off from the possibilities of coalition building with Latinos on the other side of the hill and with other groups,'' said Thomas J. Hogen-Esch, a University of Southern California doctoral candidate writing his dissertation on urban secession movements.

Hogen-Esch, also a researcher for the Elected Charter Reform Commission, described Valley secession efforts as an elite movement of homeowner associations and business groups trying to gain exclusionary control over taxation, zoning and land use.

Hogen-Esch and other panelists got solid applause from the audience of community leaders, students and residents who attended the symposium at San Fernando High School. The event was organized by a consortium of Northeast Valley organizations and various departments at California State University, Northridge.

Brief appearances were also made by state Sen.-elect Richard Alarcon and Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City. Both Alarcon and Cardenas commended the leaders for taking the initiative to probe the issue.

``The issue of secession needs to be studied and I hope everyone in the Valley learns more from these sessions,'' Alarcon told the group. ``I believe by virtue of information the community will get to the bottom of this.''

San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez II, a possible candidate for Alarcon's former Los Angeles City Council seat in the 7th District, also made an appearance at the meeting. Godinez earlier said he would not attend the meeting, but changed his mind when he was told it was not a meeting specifically closed to some secession supporters.

Prior to the symposium, there was a debate about whether the meeting would be open to others, including Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, which favors a study of Valley secession. On Saturday, organizers described the dispute as a misunderstanding and said they plan to meet with Valley VOTE in the future.

Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain, who had criticized the group for not inviting his organization, welcomed the dialogue, but defended the motivations of the secession movement in a telephone interview with the Daily News.

``This movement is not an elitist movement,'' Brain said. ``When you see where the petitions were signed - the Northeast and Northwest San Fernando Valley - that's where we received the greatest amount of signatures.

``This (dialogue) is all good,'' Brain said. ``It's good that they're bringing these issues up so we can bring them to forefront. These are the type of issues we can work through if the Valley becomes a city and we want it to be a city that represents everyone.''

Less representation?

Panelist Alan Clayton, research chairman for the Los Angeles City and County Latino Redistricting Coalition, predicted that if the Valley gained cityhood, Latinos would have the voting strength to carry just one of five City Council seats that the new city would have initially. If Los Angeles remains intact, Latinos are expected to represent one-third of the City Council seats - 5 of the 15 seats, Clayton said.

``I have major concerns with secession and how it deals with Latinos,'' Clayton told the group.

But Brain said that although state law would allow a Valley city to have only five City Council seats initially, state representatives have already voiced support for Valley VOTE's proposal to have a 23-seat council representing the Valley's 23 communities.

``There is tremendous opportunity for the Northeast Valley to have political representation,'' Brain said. ``The Valley is 30 percent Latino. I think they are a political force and I don't think they should assume they won't have a political voice.''

Hogen-Esch said secession is essentially a redistribution of urban political power, which allows a minority of homeowners and business groups to redraw the political boundaries in such a way that it becomes the majority.

``Anglo groups who are pushing for secession in the Valley would become the majority in a separate city,'' Hogen-Esch said. ``Quite simply, secession is a way for groups to evade a democratic compromise.''

Hogen-Esch suggested that Valley homeowner associations want control over zoning to prevent the encroachment of apartment buildings. Cities such as San Marino and Rolling Hills exclude certain socioeconomic groups by prohibiting apartments and multiple-family dwellings, Hogen-Esch said.

Brain disputed Hogen-Esch's findings, pointing to the fact that the Valley already has apartment complexes, with 50 percent of the Valley's residents being renters.

``We are not looking for local control for what (Hogen-Esch) thinks we want local control,'' Brain said.

``The Northeast Valley would do very well to have local control because they are the area that traditionally has been given the undesirable land uses such as the dumps,'' he said.

Hogen-Esch also suggested that with control of zoning, existing Valley businesses would be able to zone out any competition, consolidate their control over the market and set taxation levels.

Brain called this nonsense, saying that Valley businesses are trying to attract businesses to the area and often complain that the current tax structure forces other business to move out.

``Clearly we want a more vibrant business community that brings more businesses and jobs to the Valley and that benefit the Northeast Valley,'' Brain said.

The Valley as a city

Also at Saturday's meeting, David Diaz, an urban studies and Chicano studies professor at CSUN and a consultant to the Elected Charter Commission, painted a bleak picture should the Valley become a city.

The Valley would have to hire 3,000 bureaucrats, create police, fire and public works departments, not to mention address infrastructure issues, Diaz said.

``The Valley is a major urban city, it is not a lily-white West Valley community from the 1950s,'' Diaz said. ``It has major urban problems - poverty . . . deteriorating housing. It's going to cost a lot of money.''

Brain also disputed this, saying Valley taxpayers already pay the salaries of city bureaucrats and that should the Valley secede, these workers would be divided between Los Angeles and the Valley.

``The way the law reads is that those assets are divided and they become ours,'' Brain said. ``There is not this great cost for setting up a city.''

Those in attendance praised the panelists for raising questions on the secession issues and said the symposium will motivate community leaders to dig further into the matter.

``This (information) is clearly a sign that (the pro-secessionists) are hiding something from us,'' said Alma Martinez, a Mission College student trustee on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees. ``There's something out there that we have to know.''

Symposium organizer Irene Tovar said she was pleased with the turnout and felt that the group succeeded in accomplishing its mission.

``Our mission was to get out information to the community so they can start dialogue on how secession will affect Latinos and the working class and those who haven't had a voice in this process,'' said Tovar, executive director of the Latin American Civic Association.

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.