New Panel Sought to Oversee Secession Study

LOS ANGELES —  Citing the need for a fair and even-handed discussion of the issue, City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski on Tuesday asked her colleagues to create a subcommittee to oversee a study on the San Fernando Valley’s proposed secession from Los Angeles.

Miscikowski’s motion was immediately hailed by Valley VOTE, the group seeking to break the Valley from the remainder of the city, but was criticized by Mayor Richard Riordan’s office, which had already devised a plan of its own to shepherd the politically explosive study.

“This is obviously going to conflict with the mayor’s directive,” said Riordan spokeswoman Jessica Copen. “It’s going to cause a lot of confusion.”

Under the proposal submitted by Miscikowski, the committee would serve as a clearinghouse for the expected deluge of data on Los Angeles government that will be needed to analyze the proposed dismantling of the city. It would also serve as the council’s main means of communicating with the Local Agency Formation Commission, the panel that will request the information and conduct the study.

The study, which will be an unprecedented analysis on the economic consequences of deconstructing Los Angeles, must arrive at certain findings for Valley secession to be placed on the ballot. Secession would require a majority vote of the city as a whole.

Secessionists have repeatedly expressed concerns that top Los Angeles bureaucrats and Riordan’s office might try to sink the secession study by making information difficult to obtain, or even manipulating city data. Studying the breakup of the nation’s second-largest city is expected to be a complex, time-consuming task.