Rumors of War & Secession - VOTE YES
Let Hollywood and the Valley
decide
by Jim
Smith
On November 5, voters in all
parts of the city of Los Angeles will vote yes or no on whether the San Fernando
Valley and Hollywood shall separate themselves from Los Angeles and join the
other 80 independent cities in the county.
This election is not about what you think
about secession - or at least it shouldn’t be. Not if you believe that
people have the right to self-determination. If you believe that people in East
Timor, Tibet, Kurdistan or elsewhere, have the right to determine what sort of
government they have, then what about the Valley, what about Hollywood? If we
are to let the Valley and Hollywood decide their destiny, we have to vote yes.
That’s not necessarily a vote for secession, rather it’s a vote to
not block secession if that’s what voters in those two areas
want.
According to the American
Heritage Dictionary, self-determination is “Freedom of the people of a
given area to determine their own political status;
independence.”
This right is
reflected in the Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies in 1776:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new
Government.”
This means that a
people, any people, have the right to make damn fools of themselves in the name
of democracy. That’s a hard pill for the average American to swallow.
Aren’t we supposed to have a say in what other people do? If we can
determine what kind of government people in Iraq have, then why not the Valley?
Unfortunately, from a democratic
standpoint the secession law is fatally flawed. It allows people not in the
Valley, or not in Hollywood, to vote as if they lived in one of those places.
This is as if East Timor had to win a vote of people throughout Indonesia before
it could be independent. Or if Americans in 50 states got to vote on Puerto
Rican independence.
The campaign
against secession is in full swing, fueled by huge contributions from
L.A.’s biggest developers. According to the L.A. Ethics Commission, they
include more than $100,000 from Mr. Big himself, Eli Broad, and our
“friends” at Playa Vista - Playa Capital ($25,000) and Maguire
Partners ($10,000). Doug Ring, husband of our reassigned councilmember Cindy
Miscikowski, gave $50,000. These figures are only through June 30. The big money
is yet to drop (see box for more contributions). Contributions for and against
secession from July 1 through Sept. 30 will be available online and at the City
of L.A. Ethics Commission around Oct.
15.
Strange that all these developers
would be so keen to keep L.A. together since the drumbeat of the anti-secession
forces is that the Valley would lose the pathetically inadequate rent control
regulations in the city of Los Angeles. Fat chance of that happening in the
apartment-rich S.F. Valley. Still, it would seem that the fat cat developers
don’t listen to their own propaganda (And why are all these out-of-state
developers so concerned with keeping L.A.
together?).
Tagging along with the Los
Angles ruling class bandwagon are some of the more backward unions, including
the Laborers and Electrical Workers, and of course, the city workers.
Unfortunately, a number of progressives have suddenly forgotten their long time
commitment to self-determination (it’s too close to home) and have fallen
for the shrill nonsense against secession cascading from on high. On closer
examination, most of the progressives fronting for the big money boys have some
connection with downtown L.A., either a job, an organization or union, or a
Democratic Party political connection. Maybe they haven’t lost their minds
after all.
Another argument against
secession that its opponents have the gall to make is that “bigger is
better!” We haven’t heard that one in a while, at least in regard to
urban entities. The reasoning goes that L.A. can’t be a world class city
if a million Valleyites leave it. Apparently they don’t know that L.A. has
been a world class joke in much of the world precisely because of its bigness,
lack of planning, freeway snarls and mini-malls.
Imperial attitudes reemerge in yet
another argument, to wit, the inner city will suffer if Valley revenue
isn’t imported over the hill. This, in spite, of the official study by the
Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) which states that there would be no
financial impact from the
separation.
Enough about L.A. What
about Venice? There are some advantages for us if the Valley and Hollywood
secede. The average size of a L.A. city council district would drop from nearly
250,000 people to around 140,000. Still not too impressive when compared to
Santa Monica’s 12,000 people per councilmember. In addition, we’d
have instant redistricting of the council districts. We’d actually get to
vote for our councilmember - soon - not in
2005.
Finally, if the Valley and
Hollywood are successful in divorcing themselves from L.A., it might make it
easier for Lil’ Venice to slip away. Still, it’s hard to imagine how
we few could convince the rest of L.A. to let us go. Better to change the law so
only Venetians decide what kind of government Venetians should
have.
The worst outcome of the Nov. 5
election would be if a majority in the Valley and Hollywood vote yes but they
are overcome by no votes in the rest of L.A. We would then be keeping them
against their will. Would the LAPD become an army of occupation? Venetians have
some experience with this situation. Would “Free the Valley” and
“Free Hollywood” signs crop up around the world? What will Kofi
Annan say?
There is a new theory,
called Glocalism, making the rounds of academia. It says that with the
development of globalization, that local communities are becoming more
important. Seems that people want a place they can identify with in a changing
and homogenizing world. If this is true, Valley and Hollywood secession may be
just the tip of the iceberg. This time, 20, 30 years from now, there may be
hundreds of self-governing little cities in the L.A. area. There might be
enclaves of rock-ribbed Republicans, others that are run by Democrats of various
stripes, even a few that are solidly Peace & Freedom or Green. But all of
them would be small enough that most people could walk to city hall and know
where their representatives live. Little cities that come together voluntarily
to cooperate and/or argue about issues that are bigger than them, but smaller
than L.A. County or California. What a scary thought - not.
Posted: Tue - October 1, 2002 at 06:49 PM