Today's activists learn lessons of failed cityhood drives.

Talk about futility.

For nearly a century, residents in unincorporated East Los Angeles have been trying to make their community a separate city, with three measures on the ballot--all rejected--and countless attempts in between that never made it to the ballot. In the process, East L.A. has seen itself shrink as other cities around it successfully incorporated or annexed portions of the community.

Now, as yet another attempt to incorporate East Los Angeles has been launched, organizers are looking at this past history of failure, hoping not to repeat the same mistakes.

"We're very mindful of what happened with past incorporation attempts," said Oscar Gonzales, president of the East Los Angeles Residents Association, which is spearheading the current cityhood effort.

The frustration began in the 1920s after Alhambra, Monterey Park and Montebello had incorporated within the decade. Community leaders and residents in East Los Angeles feared getting left behind. After three failed tries to get cityhood on the ballot in 1925, 1931 and 1932, incorporation of East Los Angeles made it to the ballot for the first time in 1933.

But that effort was smashed with only 462 votes in favor of it and 8,439 against. The attempt was sunk by heavy opposition by industrial firms in the southern portion of East Los Angeles that were fearful of higher taxes that a new city might impose. The magnitude of that defeat silenced cityhood attempts for nearly 30 years.

Then, in 1960, came a wake-up call as the City of Commerce successfully incorporated, taking much of the industrial heartland of East Los Angeles with it. "The City of Commerce effort spurred our effort by creating the fear that other cities would continue to form and take our commercial and industrial base and leave us with just the residential base," said David Lizarraga, the longtime chief executive officer of The East Los Angeles Community Union (or TELACU).

A hastily-organized cityhood campaign in 1961 nearly won the day, falling short by just 340 votes. Property owners--many of them absentee landlords--on the community's main commercial strip, Whittier Boulevard, led the opposition, using the argument that cityhood would lead to higher taxes.

Three years later, another attempt at incorporation failed to get enough signatures to make it on the ballot.

By the time of the next ballot measure in 1974, the rise of the Chicano power movement had transformed the whole politics of East Los Angeles. The student walkout at several Eastside schools had gripped the nation a few years earlier, while a 1970 East Los Angeles protest organized by Chicano leaders against the Vietnam War spun out of control and resulted in a riot.

Cityhood now became wrapped up in the movement to get more Latino representation at all levels of government. Chicano leaders like Estaban Torres talked of East Los Angeles as a "colony" of the white power structure at the County Hall of Administration.

"The time had come to have a sense of determination to not be a colony of the Anglo community on the Westside. The feeling was, 'Let's be our own community,'" Torres said in an interview last week.

But the 1974 effort was doomed by a combination of internal dissention and a backlash against perceived excesses of the Chicano power movement. The cityhood movement split into the more moderate faction headed by Torres and a more radical faction headed by the La Raza Unida Party, which had a platform to establish a Chicano homeland in the Southwestern U.S. starting with the largely Latino East Los Angeles.

Each side backed a slate of City Council candidates, with La Raza's entry prompting a fierce backlash by the remaining business establishment in East Los Angeles, which feared the new city would be turned into a radical Chicano government. The vote wasn't even close: only 21 percent cast their ballots for cityhood. Incorporation was dead for another 30 years.

Over the next decade, East L.A. suffered a series of blows as surrounding cities continued to carve it up. Monterey Park annexed East Los Angeles College and its surrounding neighborhood; Montebello annexed the Beverly Boulevard commercial corridor and the City of Commerce took another small portion just east of Atlantic Boulevard. "What we warned would happen if incorporation failed did happen." TELACU's Lizarraga said.

Meanwhile, the passage of Propositions 13 and 218 made incorporation more difficult as they deprived cities the ability to raise property taxes and other taxes without a two-thirds vote.

But proponents of the current incorporation drive say they've learned from past mistakes. "We've all signed pledges saying that we're not going to run for the city council, so we cannot be accused of a power grab." Gonzales said.

Also, cityhood leader and state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-East Los Angeles, said there's an understanding of the increased clout a city of East Los Angeles would wield.

"There is a reason why presidential nominees stop in East L.A. before they go in search of the White House. There is a real understanding that this region as a place of extreme importance to the Latino vote. This time there is support from the business community. This time around you have chambers who are partners in this," she said.

BY HOWARD FINE 

Staff Reporter