Last week’s certification of petitions seeking to have Hollywood secede from the city of L.A. adds another 206,000 people to the total of those living in areas seeking to leave the city. That total now stands at roughly 1.64 million, or 43 percent of the 3.82 million residents of Los Angeles, hardly an insignificant number.

What’s more, according to Shirley Svorney, professor of economics at Cal State Northridge, the addition of Hollywood to the official secession proposals of the San Fernando Valley and the Harbor area means that more than 50 percent of likely voters in the city reside in these three areas. The San Fernando Valley alone had 48 percent of the total citywide voter turnout in the Nov. 7 election.

“I don’t think when this whole secession thing started that anyone ever thought that a majority of likely voters in the city would reside in areas seeking to secede,” Svorney said. “That’s a major development.”

This is crucial because any vote to secede not only requires a majority within the area seeking secession but also a majority of votes citywide. Knowing this, secession proponents in these three areas have long sought to get their secession proposals on the same ballot. They are now pushing for the measures to be placed on the November 2002 ballot.

“There’s no doubt there will be a benefit to us with all three measures on the same ballot,” said Jeff Brain, president of Valley VOTE, the San Fernando Valley pro-secession organization.

In a 1999 poll, 60 percent of San Fernando Valley residents favored secession, while San Fernando Valley secession garnered 47 percent support citywide.

Currently, the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro/Wilmington secession proposals are being studied by the Local Agency Formation Commission; Hollywood secession proponents will present their proposal to LAFCO in coming weeks.

LAFCO will have to figure out how to divide the assets between the city and each of these areas seeking secession; ultimately, the agency must certify that secession in each of these three areas will be revenue neutral before it will allow any measures to be placed on the ballot.

New Term Limits Initiative

State Assemblyman Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, earlier this month used a downtown gathering of business and political leaders to pitch for a statewide initiative to lengthen term limits for state legislators.

“The current system simply doesn’t work and everyone knows it,” Wesson said, referring to the six-year term limits for the state Assembly and the eight-year term limits for the state Senate. “Things now move so quickly that after you win re-election to a second term, you immediately start eyeing what seats are open elsewhere.”

What’s more, he said, rookie legislators who barely know where the restrooms are now find themselves in positions of power.

“As a freshman, I was appointed a committee chair,” Wesson said. “I had no idea what I was doing at first and had to rely extensively on some of the more senior members of the committee.”

Wesson and fellow legislator Don Perata, a Democratic state senator from Oakland, wants to draft an initiative to lengthen term limits to 12 or 14 years in each chamber. The aim is to collect signatures in time to put it on one of the 2002 ballots. Legislators themselves could put the initiative on the ballot, but all acknowledge that would be viewed as a power grab by legislators and would thus be soundly defeated.

Of course, Wesson is term-limited out in 2004, Perata in 2006. Wesson said he is willing to consider language that would exempt some or all current legislators from the longer term limits.

“I’m not doing this for myself, but for the good of the institution,” he said.

His proposal met with a generally favorable response from the group, all of whom agreed that the current system is broken and needs fixing. However, some thought the term limits that Wesson has proposed were too long; others said people should not be able to move immediately between the Assembly and the Senate when their terms are up.

Delgadillo Fund-Raiser

Speaking of term limits, as L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan is termed out next June, so is his staff. Rocky Delgadillo, his deputy mayor for economic development, is running hard for City Attorney against the better-known L.A. City Councilman Mike Feuer and the less well-known deputy D.A. Lea Purwin D’Agostino.

Delgadillo, formerly an attorney with O’Melveny & Myers, has hit the fundraising circuit hard, relying on the scores of business owners his office has helped over the years. One of the wealthiest of those is Alfred Mann, chairman and chief executive of biomedical firm MiniMed Inc. and a biomedical philanthropist. Mann is hosting a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Delgadillo at his Mulholland Estates home on Dec. 3.

“The people and businesses we’ve helped at the Business Team have all contacted me and many have offered to help with the campaign,” Delgadillo said.

And it’s not just wealthy multimillionaires. Delgadillo attended a Nov. 18 fundraiser put on by the owners of West Coast Metal Finishing Co. The South Central L.A. firm, which posted $2.9 million in sales last year, burned down to the ground four years ago and was able to get back on its feet thanks to some red-tape cutting from Delgadillo’s Business Team.