Hahn Defends City’s Role in Delivery of Valley Services
By JACQUELINE FOX
San Fernando Valley Business Journal
As the push for San Fernando Valley secession started to heat up last summer, L.A. Mayor James Hahn announced his own plans for keeping the city together. His strategy was highlighted in November with the formation of his political action committee, L.A. United, which plans to raise a $5 million war chest to stop secession.
Hahn knows that in order to convince secession proponents that it is a bad idea, he’s got to meet them face to face. So he has become a regular at many civic and social events, calling for city commissioners to hold meetings locally and working to strengthen relationships with business owners and residents.
Question: As a long-time city official you’ve seen the issue of Valley secession come up before. What makes this movement so different that it’s forced you to raise $5 million to kill it?
Answer: It’s real this time because they’ve got petitions to start the LAFCO (Local Area Formation Commission) process and we know it’s headed for a vote in November and anytime there’s a vote on anything, there’s the possibility that the side that you want to win doesn’t win. So, I think that it’s a decision that needs to be made, made once and for all, and I want to be able to make the case while we’re stronger.
Q: The city and your staff have invested a lot of time and money coming up with data to prove secession would be harmful. That’s time and money that could have been used to improve city services. How has this work on secession impacted your administration?
A: I disagree that we were trying to prove secession would be harmful. We were trying to come up with the data so people can make the decision. This is a process that LAFCO requires the city to do. We had to come up with the financial analysis for how the new city would be able to function, how the old city would be able to continue services and what the cost differential is. This has been enormously expensive for the city. But I think that since this is something that has been simmering for a long time, we need to get the facts out.
Q: You’ve promised to improve the quality of services in the Valley, but with budget cuts there’s concern that city services everywhere will be compromised. What can do in the next 10 months to improve services that previous city administrations haven’t been able to do in the last 10 years?
A: Well, obviously it’s not what I had planned. I planned on having the same kind of revenue growth the previous mayor experienced. He was getting almost 10 percent revenue growth per year and was able to do a lot of different things. We are facing a huge budget deficit now of $250 million next year. It’s going to be very difficult, but I’m going to ask the general managers and the city employee unions to figure out ways to deliver services more efficiently.
Q: Clearly you’ve been increasing your visibility in the Valley. Why shouldn’t Valley residents view your actions as nothing more than empty gestures designed to stop secession?
A: Because it’s not only happening in the Valley. It’s not just about the Valley, it’s not just an empty gesture, it’s something we’re doing all over the city. We’re trying to bring government out to neighborhoods and out to people.
Q: Critics say it will be years before neighborhood councils in the Valley are fully up and running and that they will give residents little power. How do you respond?
A: What I’ve said was I want to give these neighborhood councils real involvement with city government. I want them to review budgets of departments, review the performance of general managers, get them involved, let them know that their voice is really going to be heard. The first year (neighborhood councils were introduced) I don’t think Mayor Riordan gave this department enough money to get it started. In a sense, I think we are a year behind where we wanted to be, but I think we’re moving very fast now.
Q: You’ve vowed to bring more buses to the Valley. What is the status of the East-West Transit Corridor project?
A: The busway is going to move forward. It’s a very expensive project.
But the MTA’s going forward with the East-West Transit Corridor, and it doesn’t look like anything is going to slow that down and it will be beneficial. Will it be worth the amount of money we’re going to spend on it? I guess time will have to tell.
Q: Some Valley business leaders say, with or without secession, the Valley should have an autonomous transit system. Meanwhile, the MTA is proposing a Valley-based extension of its own agency. Which would be more efficient?
A: I like the outlines of (the MTA plan) of basically decentralizing MTA so that there would be different semi-autonomous regions. A Valley transit zone still would have to honor the contracts that the current bargaining units have with MTA, so I don’t know where the savings is necessarily going to come in with another agency with its own overhead.
