SECESSION APPEALING, APPALLING; REST OF L.A. SPLIT OVER VALLEY CAUSE.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

From the Vermont Square neighborhood in South Los Angeles, the center of the city's power seems a world away, and the San Fernando Valley even farther.

Never mind that the neighborhood is five miles from City Hall. When something needs to get done - street repair, graffiti removal - the city's attention always seems to be somewhere else, residents say.

Here, the Valley secession drive gets a cool reception at best. Residents worry that taking any tax money out of the city's pot may make the dismal services they receive even worse. And they have no patience for complaints that the Valley doesn't get its fair share of services.

``We had to sign a petition to get the trees cut at the library - and you think I'm worrying about the Valley?'' resident Helen Johnson asked.

The frustration felt by South Central residents is in some ways mirrored by people in middle-class Eagle Rock and affluent Pacific Palisades, where they say getting the attention of city officials takes work.

But their reaction to the Valley's secession movement remains split: Some are alarmed and some are happy that a path away from Los Angeles is being blazed.

Some Los Angeles residents worry that the departure of any part of the city would harm the whole. Others say they understand the allure of breaking away.

To some South Central residents, Valley secession is little but white flight writ large. They see in it a desire to leave them behind.

``It's not so much about breaking away from L.A.; it's about breaking away from the people,'' Johnson said.

The Rev. Clarence Devereaux at the Solid Rock Missionary Baptist Church worries that the secession drive could widen the divisions between races.

``There'd be more separation: `This is our city, and we don't want you out here,' '' he said.

Equally as troubling to Devereaux is how the loss of Valley taxes would affect services in the rest of the city. The street next to his church is already in poor repair and never gets fixed. No one cleans up the debris from car wrecks in the neighborhood, leaving glass and plastic lying on the pavement.

``If they go, that means there's not enough money to go around for the rest of the city,'' Devereaux said.

Catherine Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood more than 40 years, fears her taxes could go up as a result. ``I hope not, because I'm retired,'' she said. ``We can't spend anything more.''

Williams and others in the neighborhood share one thing in common with Valley secessionists: a conviction that the city isn't giving them their fair share. Johnson laments that neighborhood residents don't have the money or political connections to get things done.

But as dissatisfied as South Central residents are, they don't see forming their own city as a realistic option, Johnson said.

``That takes a lot of revenue,'' she said, ``and I don't think it's out there right now.''

A piece of the rock

Eagle Rock residents like to point out that their middle-class neighborhood used to be its own separate town. A two-story stucco City Hall, shaded by immense pines, still stands on the old commercial strip, where trolley lines once linked people to the distant sea.

Long before the Valley secession movement, residents have talked before about forming their own city again. Tim Sanders, a retired physics professor, said people can grow frustrated dealing with downtown officials who have little clue what the neighborhood is like.

And, yet, Sanders and others in Eagle Rock say they have seen, during the last few years, a marked improvement in the city government's attitude toward their community.

With the help of their councilman, Richard Alatorre, they recently secured a $75,000 grant to study ways to rejuvenate the community's core. The study will help create a Business Improvement District covering the many mom-and-pop stores on Eagle Rock and Colorado boulevards.

Joanne Turner, president of the Eagle Rock Association, said residents are learning how to get City Hall's attention.

``It's gotten better in recent years because we complain,'' she said. ``I hate to say it like that, but it's true. We have activist citizens here.''

Of course, it also helps that Alatorre is an Eagle Rock resident - and that his local field deputy, who has an office in the old Eagle Rock City Hall, has been receptive to residents' ideas, Turner said.

Still, some wonder if the community would be better off on its own. Perhaps Eagle Rock would have an easier time luring new businesses into town if it separated from the city, Sanders said.

``It's very difficult to recruit businesses if you're just a small part of L.A.,'' he said.

Turner said the community is still waiting to see what happens both with the latest efforts to rejuvenate Eagle Rock and the Valley's secession drive.

``It's all very up in the air,'' she said. ``I'm hoping in the very least that it will make City Hall more responsive.''

Not just a bluff

Pacific Palisades, too, has considered secession.

At one point, the community that once was home to President Reagan even conducted an economic feasibility study on breaking away.

But the effort died because residents just didn't think detachment was politically possible, said Rubell Helgeson, past president of the local residents association.

Not everyone has given up on the idea. Jack Allen, a resident and former city attorney for Beverly Hills, said some in Pacific Palisades want to join the Valley secession drive and then, once out of Los Angeles, merge with Santa Monica.

The seaside city's police and fire stations, he said, are far closer to the Palisades than the city stations that serve the area.

``We get almost no police service,'' he said. ``We generally feel like a stepchild.''

But others in this community of big homes and impressive views have less interest in leaving Los Angeles.

One reason may be that they have learned over the years how to get much of what they want from the city. They are highly organized, with their own community council feeding information and opinions to City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. And an affluent population can sometimes fill in the gaps when the city doesn't quite deliver.

For about 12 years, residents have wanted a new gymnasium. After years of pressing the city, they finally received $1 million, hardly enough to build the gym, said resident Kurt Toppel.

``A million dollars buys you nothing but toilets, built to code, and the floor, maybe,'' said Toppel, co-chairman of the committee working to build the gym.

So the community launched a fund-raising drive that in about two years has netted almost $800,000, Toppel said. Although he estimated the project's total cost around $2.2 million, the groundbreaking ceremony could happen in November.

Palisades residents also point to the financial problems of independent Malibu, just up the coast, as another reason for avoiding secession.

For all the wealth of Malibu's residents, they note, the small city has struggled to pay for cleaning up one natural disaster after another.

``We look up the road from us, and we don't think their being independent is any great deal,'' said Bill Bruns, managing editor of the community newspaper. ``It's a real hardship when the bad times come.''

Even if Palisades residents are sufficiently organized to get what they want, Toppel said they too get frustrated with what can seem a distant and inefficient city government. Although pleased with Miscikowski, Toppel said local interest in leaving Los Angeles may grow again as Valley secessionists push their cause.

``I'm sure that if the Valley continues on its drive, there would be sympathy, and maybe people could be persuaded to go along,'' he said.