VIEWS ON VALLEY SECESSION: UNION SHOULD HAVE VOICE, NOT RUN CITY.

Byline: Kimit Muston

I thought state Sen. Richard Alarcon made a convincing lap dog when he dutifully sat up, barked and announced he's not running for Valley mayor. However, his insistence that after months of publicly investigating secession it had suddenly occurred to him - via a bolt of lightening, I guess - that secession involved alimony lacked a little conviction.

But this episode may have a positive effect, finally putting names to the modus operandi of the City Hall mafia, and one of the labor leaders jerking on Alarcon's leash was Julie Butcher.

Julie Butcher is the general manager of Local 347, the Service Employees International Union, and a member of the local power elite for the past decade.

Harold Myerson, in the June 4, 1999, issue of L.A. Weekly, described her involvement in Charter Reform: ``Julie Butcher ... sweated every comma in the new charter to make sure that worker rights were preserved or enhanced.''

In May 2000, the City Council appointed Butcher president of the Quality and Productivity Commission, which funds programs and awards to employees in city departments who find ways to improve service to the taxpayers.

Her special perspective on productivity was on view a year later when she complained to The Planning Report (August 2001), ``Every consultant report from the Riordan administration showed that we could do a better job with fewer mechanics, fewer harbor workers, fewer folks at the zoo. ...''

Oddly, Butcher found none of those reports suggesting lower staffing to be accurate. Who would have thought a union leader would come to a conclusion like that?

Local 347's support for the victorious Jimmy Hahn made Butcher even more powerful inside City Hall. One union that backed Villaraigosa for mayor, the Engineers and Architects Association, now charges on its Web site that city department managers have recently allowed the SEIU to conduct union business on city property and that somebody in the Controller's Office turned over to SEIU organizers private information of EAA members who have received phone calls, e-mails and questionnaires from a mysterious ``We Can Do Better Committee.''

While the EAA leadership sees this as a plan to decertify them so their members would join the SEIU, there is no evidence that anyone has done anything illegal.

But so close is the relationship between Butcher and City Hall that EAA leadership has labeled Local 347 ``a company union.''

And that is the true face of the City Hall mafia: union chiefs, bureaucrats, lobbyists and politicians sharing equally in the bounty of taxpayer money, punishing those who step out of line, rewarding their own who follow the house rules and exchanging one individual for another. What is important is the system survives.

These folks aren't evil and don't see themselves as doing evil.

In a June 1999 KCET-TV interview discussing charter reform, Butcher admitted that, ``People in Los Angeles feel disconnected from their government.'' She even suggested, ``I believe the way to improve that ... is to increase the size of the City Council. ... I believe delivering more power locally is a better idea.''

It almost sounds as if she were supporting secession, doesn't it? She did support boroughs and neighborhood councils, but she was quick to add, ``We're not talking about anything that hurts city workers.''

But the alliance between union and bureaucracy and politicians does hurt city workers, who are also taxpayers in a city which pays more each year in pension benefits to ex-employees than in salaries to current workers. With no caps in sight, this pension system begins to take on the elements of a pyramid scheme being played on taxpayers and current employees alike.

But obviously no politician or bureaucrat dares to take on the union leadership.

If you want to know why, ask Sen. Alarcon.

Good government is a balancing act, not a winner-take-all event.

Union input is vital and so is the input of business and social lobbies.

But there is a fundamental difference between these groups having input and designing government to their own specifications or stifling participation in a public debate of public issues.

Secession would not be happening if the City Hall mafia had not been so successful at controlling charter reform, and labor's success in silencing Alarcon is visible proof that City Hall will never reform itself. Secession may be the last chance for good government on either side of the hill.