VALLEY SUPPORTERS, NEIGHBORS CELEBRATE.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

For months they pushed, cajoled and begged any politician who would listen, trying to win approval for a bill that would ease the San Fernando Valley's path to secession.

Monday, still giddy with success, they threw themselves a party.

Supporters of Valley VOTE gathered in a low-ceilinged ballroom at the Ventura Club to toast Gov. Pete Wilson's signing into law a bill taking away the Los Angeles City Council's power to veto secession efforts. Joining the party via cell phone, Wilson congratulated the crowd on what he called ``a victory for democracy'' that would make city governments more responsive and accountable to the people they serve.

``It's being described, I know, by some of its opponents as a breakup bill,'' Wilson said as former Assemblywoman Paula Boland held the phone up to a public address system as about 100 people craned to listen.

``I think it's more accurate to call it a wake-up bill.''

Many of the revelers munching on mini-bagels and veggie wraps, however, saw Wilson's signing as a long-awaited first step toward forming a new city.

``We've had enough of L.A.,'' said Gary Hendrickson of North Hollywood.

Hendrickson brought his still-roadworthy 1915 Ford Model T to the party to remind people of the Valley's annexation by Los Angeles in 1915. To the driver's-side door, Hendrickson taped the Los Angeles city seal, covered with a red circle and slash.

``It's time to break away, but keep the car,'' he said.

Pumped up by short speeches from Boland and Assembly members Tom McClintock, R-Granada Hills, and Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, supporters of Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment spent much of Monday's party anticipating their next steps.

A petition drive is planned for January, after the new law takes effect. Secession backers also would have to win the support of the county's Local Agency Formation Commission, as well as voters throughout the city, before the Valley could break away.

``I think our chances are excellent,'' said Don Schultz of Van Nuys, a Valley VOTE board member. Schultz said the group had come this far by focusing on the task immediately at hand and not worrying about long-term difficulties.

``Ever since we started, it's been, `Let's get past this hurdle, then we'll get to the next,' '' he said.

Valley VOTE co-chairman Richard H. Close said he was working to unite his group's efforts with those of the San Fernando Valley Secession Board, another secession-minded organization in which Close also is active.

``My goal is to bring everyone into this group so that it has the people, the organization,'' he said.

The party, held at the Ventura Club on Ventura Boulevard, also drew people from other parts of the city who saw, in the new law's passage, a sign that their own neighborhoods could someday pull away from Los Angeles. Robert Nudelman of Hollywood noted that people there have talked for years about forming their own city.

``More people will look at it now, because the first hurdle's been cleared,'' he said.

Adrian Dove, a South Central Los Angeles resident and vice chair of the Congress of Racial Equality, said the principles of self-determination embodied in the newly signed law should even be applied to the nation's capital, where the federal government controls the city's finances.

``The Valley today, D.C. tomorrow,'' Dove said.

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