Valley VOTE is a diverse, Valley-wide coalition of San Fernando Valley residents, educators, business leaders, community activists and organizations who support a LAFCO study (Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission) on the issue of creating an independent Valley City.

Valley VOTE's"State of the Valley" Report 4-8-99

At this time that the Mayor is issuing the "State of the City" Report, Valley VOTE the organization that successfully circulated a petition calling for a LAFCO Study on Valley Cityhood issued its "State of the Valley" Report.

Issues that Valley VOTE believes need to be focused on;

Funding of the LAFCO Study

The residents of the San Fernando Valley have successfully petitioned their Government as allowed by law to require a LAFCO Study on the feasibility of the Valley becoming its own City. The Study will provide all voters throughout Los Angeles the facts on Valley Cityhood, good or bad, so they can make an informed decision. It will also shed light on where tax dollars are being spent. The City spent over $800,000 because it didn’t pay it’s phone bills on time, over $350,000 because it mistakenly left the lists of projects out of the Proposition 1 ballot measure, several million dollars because the City Council wanted to have its own Charter Reform commission in addition to the elected Charter Commission approved by the voters and the City spends over $20,000,000 per year on various studies. Residents of Los Angeles want and deserve the facts on Valley Cityhood. The County, State and Federal Governments have already taken steps toward providing funding.

The City of Los Angeles must provide its prorata share of the LAFCO Study Cost.

Why is the Van Nuys City Hall not rebuilt five years after the Northridge Earthquake?

The City of Los Angeles is spending over $300,000,000 to rehab the downtown Cityhall, with lavish City Council offices complete with fancy private bathrooms, wetbars and exclusive elevators. Meanwhile, the Van Nuys City Hall still has a chain link fence around the front entrance to the building. While work is finally underway, why did it take so long to begin the work and why is the work not completed five years after the earthquake? The City approved a three billion-dollar program called the "10 minute diamond" which calls for all government buildings to be located within a ten minute walk of City Hall. Yet the Valley had to fight for a mere three million dollars paid over multiple years to improve and clean up the area surrounding the Van Nuys Government Center, which services the 1.3 million Valley residents or 35% of the City’s population.

Valley Business License Tax Too High

According the Kosmont Study, once again Los Angeles is among the most expensive places to do business in all of Southern California. An average 10,000 square foot business in the Valley pays $60,000 per year in business taxes and fees. That same business can go to Burbank and pay $660 per year, Santa Clarita and pay virtually ZERO or Thousand Oaks or Calabasas and pay $1,400 per year. The Business License Tax is driving business to leave the Valley for adjacent communities that have much less or no similar taxes. As businesses leave, Valley residents loose their jobs. Unlike downtown businesses that thrive on the downtown business environment, Valley Businesses have choices and stiff competition surrounding them in every direction.

Deployment of Police

In recent years Mayor Riordan has worked hard to expand the police department and improve the level of Police service in the Valley. But not enough has been done. Out of the roughly 10,000 men and women of LAPD who patrol Los Angeles neighborhoods, only 1,800 are assigned to the Valley which contains 35% of the City’s population. Out of 18 crime photographers only one is assigned to the Valley and that is only between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm. All other times crime scenes have to be secured by the police for as much as an hour or two while a photographer comes from downtown. Meanwhile, the police officers that are securing the scene are unavailable to respond to other calls. The deployment of police is based on crime statistics. Because the Valley has certain areas with low crime rates the Valley overall is deprived the necessary deployment. As a result the North East Valley communities where crime is significantly higher do not have adequate police coverage to properly deal with the level of crime and better protect North East Valley residents.

Programs for the Poor

The Valley has its fair share of the poor but does not receive its fair share of funds and programs to help the Valley’s poor. Fully one third of the City’s poor live in the Valley, a statistic not yet accepted or recognized by City Hall. As a result, programs such as the Housing programs were created based on standards which do not help the poor in the Valley because the cost of housing in the Valley is more expensive then the city’s program’s will allow. Programs are designed so they only work in a given area. It took the Northridge Earthquake and city leaders to see 20,000 people living in a park to know that everyone in the Valley is not wealthy. Still, Federal Funds intended to help the poor once they hit City Hall do not flow through to the Valley’s poor. Time after time Block Grant funds and programs are awarded elsewhere in the City, not to Valley communities. The City has left the poor of the Valley behind for years. That is why the poorer communities in the Valley overwhelmingly supported the Valley’s petition for a study of Cityhood more than more affluent communities.

Valley Transit Authority

The San Fernando Valley which is home to 35% of the City’s population and covers 50% of the City’s land area, has paid 1.3 billion dollars over the last 10 years but has virtually nothing to show for it. The other half of Los Angeles has a Red line, Blue Line and Green Line all up and running. The movement toward a Valley Transit Authority must move forward. The City’s own analysis showed that if the Valley Transit Authority were created, the operating costs could be cut by 25%, more buses could be put on the streets to serve the transit dependent Valley residents and that bus fares could be cut from $1.35 to $1.00 per ride. This will benefit the transit dependent residents of the Valley.

The City of Los Angeles must support and call upon the MTA to immediately create the proposed Valley Transit Authority.

Please help and contribute to support this Valley-wide effort:

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