RIGHT-TO-SECEDE BILL GOING TO SENATE FLOOR; VALLEY ADVOCATES SWAY PIVOTAL STATE COMMITTEE.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

After a day of intense lobbying, San Fernando Valley legislators and community leaders won a crucial vote Tuesday in a key Senate committee for legislation allowing secession from Los Angeles on a citywide vote.

``We're planning our victory party, and we're inviting the governor to the celebration,'' enthused Richard Close, co-chairman of Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment and president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association.

The showdown between Valley leaders and anti-secession forces occurred in the 13-member Senate Appropriations Committee where seven votes were needed to send the right-to-secede bill to the floor where passage is expected as early as Friday.

A morning vote got only five votes, triggering the intense effort by Valley legislators and leaders and even a Los Angeles city lobbyist to muster two more votes to strip the City Council of its veto power over secession drives.

Finally, in dramatic fashion on a fourth roll-call vote in midafternoon, a San Diego Republican senator threw his support behind the measure, AB 62, to the delight of supporters.

``The next stop is the Senate floor,'' said Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. ``We're on our way, brother.''

Supporters were confident they would have the 21 votes needed for passage in the Senate as well as Assembly agreement to the extension of the measure from Los Angeles only to the whole state.

Close said Valley leaders soon will begin gathering the research needed to put a secession petition proposal before voters.

``We want to have it on the ballot in the year 2000,'' Close said.

The group has battled since last year for legislation that would strike from state law the ability of a city council to veto any plan by residents to break away from a city.

The measure would require secession to be put to a citywide vote, and would need the approval of a majority in the entire city and in the detaching area to take effect.

``I'm cautiously optimistic. We still have three more hurdles before it's law,'' said Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Granada Hills, co-author of the measure with Hertzberg.

The final hurdle is Gov. Pete Wilson, who is faced with a staff recommendation to veto as well as strong GOP pressure to sign the measure.

The Senate committee agreed to make several changes to the bill blunting the impact of amendments Sen. Richard Polanco, R-Los Angeles, an opponent of secession, had forced into the bill at an earlier hearing.

The committee agreed to limit a provision calling for a study of any secession proposal to the Valley and only requires the study to take place if money for the review is included in the state budget.

``The bill is now in the shape we wanted it to be in,'' said Jeff Brain, also a co-chairman of Valley VOTE. ``We're very pleased. This is the culmination of a lot of effort.''

The statewide provision - which increased opposition to the bill - made its passage out of committee Tuesday no easy task. The panel considered placing the measure on hold until next week.

At the first roll call, the tally was 5-1. The committee left the voting rolls open while Hertzberg, McClintock and a city lobbyist fanned out to try to round up additional votes.

At the same time, Roxanne Miller, a lobbyist for the city of San Jose, was urging committee members to vote against the bill. She argued that the measure - amended to apply to all cities throughout the state - wasn't needed outside of Los Angeles.

She said elimination of the veto power should be delayed until a statewide review is made of laws governing local boundaries.

``We think this bill's application statewide is putting the cart before the horse,'' she said.

When the committee took a second tally about 1 p.m., proponents picked up the vote of Sen. Charles Calderon, D-Montebello.

On a third vote, Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, cast a no vote, temporarily bringing the tally to 6-2.

McClintock spent the afternoon lobbying Sen. David Kelley, R-San Diego, who initially had voted against the measure, to change his vote. Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, D-Van Nuys, made several calls as well. Hertzberg went back to the committee room, and took a seat on the dais as the committee took a final tally.

``I was going to sit there until we got it out,'' Hertzberg said.

But it was McClintock's lobbying that paid off. In the past few minutes of the session, Kelley switched his vote to yes.

``I think he was pretty sick and tired of talking to me by the end of the day,'' McClintock said. ``I told Dave after the vote that if he ever wanted to run for statewide office, he ought to stop by the San Fernando Valley.''