Backers of Hollywood Secession File More Supporting Signatures

Declaring that their cityhood campaign is back on track, Hollywood secessionists Wednesday filed additional petitions calling upon Los Angeles County to conduct an incorporation feasibility study.

Petitions bearing the signatures of 7,077 more registered voters from Hollywood were turned over to the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, said leaders of Hollywood Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, or VOTE.

Last month, incorporation backers learned that a six-month petition campaign aimed at gathering signatures of 19,660 voters to formally launch the cityhood drive had come up 2,604 names short.

Under state law, the Hollywood VOTE group was given two more weeks to collect enough new signatures to make up the deficit.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” said Gene La Pietra, founder of the group. “We think this will put us over the top. But after last night’s presidential election, we’re not taking anything for granted.”

The county commission is required to evaluate the economic feasibility of incorporation of an area if at least 25% of its registered voters ask it to do so. The proposed six-mile-wide Hollywood city would have about 80,000 voters.

A spokeswoman for the commission said the additional signatures will be turned over to the county registrar-recorder’s office today. Officials indicated that verification of the new names will take about four weeks.

As part of its initial effort, the secession group in August turned about 21,200 signatures over to the county.

But when the registrar-recorder’s office set out to verify that the signatures belonged to registered Hollywood voters, numerous duplicate names were discovered.

After that, leaders of incorporation movements in the San Fernando Valley and the San Pedro area assisted the Hollywood group in collecting the extra signatures.

Advocates of breaking Los Angeles into four cities hope to qualify the Valley, Harbor and Hollywood secession movements for a 2002 municipal vote. Any secession would require approval from the entire city.

Political consultant Angelo Paparella, whose El Segundo company, Progressive Campaigns Inc., helped with the petition campaign, said his company is still reviewing the first group of signatures that Hollywood VOTE filed with the county in hopes of finding additional qualified names.

“I’m not worried. We’re very confident,” Paparella said Wednesday. “My reputation is on the line. I have as much at stake as anybody.”

But La Pietra acknowledged that Hollywood’s independence effort will end if it turns out that the petitions still lack the 19,660 required voter signatures.

“We’d have to start all over again,” La Pietra said.