Secession Group Submits 200,000 Signatures

With great ceremony but no money, activists pushing for a study on divorcing the San Fernando Valley from Los Angeles turned in more than 200,000 signatures Wednesday, leading the agency that oversees the secession process to ask the county for financial help.

Valley VOTE, the group leading the movement to break off more than a third of the city, laid 22 boxes of petitions before the Local Agency Formation Commission in hopes of kicking off a study and possible vote on Valley secession.

But as promised, the secession activists brought no check for the fee normally charged by the commission to check signatures, calling it an unconstitutional hurdle. They vowed to take their objections to court if necessary.

“To charge the people amounts to a poll tax,” said Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain. “It is a violation of the 14th Amendment.”

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the nine-member commission, agreed with secession activists, saying such a signature fee--which could run as high as $270,000--bars all but the rich from placing measures on the ballot.

With unanimous support from his colleagues, he vowed to ask the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to waive the fee, but conceded he may not have the support to succeed.

Valley VOTE needs 132,000 signatures--or one-fourth of the Valley’s registered voters--to spur a secession study. If the study finds secession is economically feasible, county leaders could place the issue on the ballot as early as 2000.

Activists in San Pedro-Wilmington, Eagle Rock and Westchester-Playa del Rey have launched secession drives.