Secession Study Will Be Delayed 3 Months

Blaming the city of Los Angeles for delays, the agency studying cityhood for the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the Harbor area warned Monday that its initial report will be three months late.

The head of the Local Agency Formation Commission said the agency will miss a Jan. 1 deadline for the report, but the delay should not make it impossible to put cityhood proposals on the November 2002 ballot.

“It’s going to make it tight,” said LAFCO Executive Director Larry Calemine. “It’s still doable.”

Secessionists who were counting on the initial fiscal analysis by Jan. 1 noted it was at least the second delay in release of the key report, designed to provide an inventory of existing municipal assets and liabilities.

“I am getting more nervous,” said Richard Close, chairman of Valley VOTE.

“However, I have no concern that this will jeopardize our ability to get this on the November 2002 ballot because there is so much extra time built in.”

Originally, the Local Agency Formation Commission planned to release the financial report by a private consultant in December, but earlier glitches forced the agency to move the release date back to Jan. 1, according to Calemine.

Now, it looks like the report will not be available until March 31 at the earliest.

“We have had to collect an absolute ton of data from the city,” Calemine said.

“They are running about two to three months behind in providing the data we need.”

Calemine released a memo from private consultant Public Financial Management acknowledging that some of the delays resulted from incomplete data supplied by the city.

“For other key data, the city has yet to provide the requested information in its entirety,” wrote consultant Craig Hoshijima.

“An example of key data that remains incomplete is the comprehensive inventory of city facilities, which includes a valuation or a sufficient property description that will allow for a third-party valuation.”

The city owns about 1,500 properties, but has failed to provide sufficient valuation and descriptive data for many of them, officials said.

A separate report on revenue sources is also late.

Close said the inability of the city to provide a complete, detailed inventory of its property is evidence of the need for Valley cityhood.

“I blame the city for not having the information available,” Close said. “This verifies the common criticism that the city’s management is generally poor.”

City officials said the criticism is unfair. Part of the problem has been that LAFCO and its consultants have asked for new information after determining that their original data requests were not what they needed, said Lisa Gritzner, the chief of staff for Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski.

Miscikowski chairs the council’s ad hoc committee on secession issues.

“We don’t think this should be a blame game,” Gritzner said. “This is about a humongous city doing everything it can to provide information, some of which requires a lot of research. We are moving mountains.”

Gritzner said she suspects some of the delay may have been caused by the addition of Hollywood to the study, after cityhood backers there collected enough signatures on petitions. LAFCO officials said the delay to March 31 is not affected by the addition of Hollywood.

LAFCO sent dozens of new data requests to the city last week, seeking information on what police, fire and redevelopment resources are currently allocated to Hollywood.

Calemine has downplayed the effect of the Hollywood study on the timeline, but it clearly has complicated the task.

For one thing, the commission will consider Wednesday how to fund the $290,000 cost of adding Hollywood to the study, which was funded for the Valley and Harbor area with $2.65 million allocated by the city, county and state.