The San Fernando valley is attempting to secede from the city of Los Angeles. Their reason is pretty much what you’d expect. 1)We’re paying x percent of the tax and not getting x percent of the city services. 2)The school district is a cluster**** of a boondoggle(too true). 3) The city is simply too large and would be better run as 2 different cities. 4)The rest of LA doesn’t even consider us a part of LA…
Aside from whether or not the break-up should actually happen, reps fro the City of Los Angels(the Mayor, the City’s Attorney) have said publicly that if the Valley becomes it’s own city, all it gets are the streets, everything else must be purchased from the city of Los Angeles! http://www.dailynews.com/news/articles/1101/27/new04.asp
Now this chaps my hide. My position, like that of the Valley, is that the break-up would be like that of a marriage. There would be an equal division of property. After all, the Valley has been paying for these assets since they were built. They have a right to get their fair share. Why would we have to pay for the police stations and fire stations and libraries again? Would this set a precedent for future cities that want to divide?
Or is this just posturing to threaten the Valley into towing the line…
My guess is that it’s all posturing, and if secession did occur and LA tried to withhold infrastructure it would be challenged in court and the Valley would likely win.
In some cases, maybe. But let’s look at the Power and Water infrastrucure. The City of LA through the DWP supplies power and water to the city.
If the city of San Fernando continues to use the LADWP everything is fine. But what if they want to use Southern California Edison? Should the power infrastructure be simply given to SCE? That would not be fair to the rest of LA’s taxpayers. The DWP would have to sell the infrastructure to SCE and prorate the proceeds by some formula to San Fernando and the rest of LA.
And this is just the DWP. Every city asset would have to be split like this. Ugh, what a mess!
Correct me if I am wrong. But didn’t San Fernando pay for their share of the power infrastructure? In fact more than their share because that is one of the reasons the valley wants to leave.
I read that LA Times article this morning.
As far as the valley having to pay LA for the parks and other facilities in case of a breakup, why should they? Those parks dont belong to the city, they belong to the taxpayers of the city! Did’nt the taxpayers in those neighborhoods pay taxes all those years to purchase and maintain those facilities?
And there is no reason for that to change. Surely the Valley can enter into contract with DWP for utilities. Believe me, I don’t think anyone wants Edison. I would imagine that, execpt for the initial paperwork, DWP would scarcely notice the change.
The Valley could contract with the City for other services, sucj as police or fire. But the buildings should belong to the valley. The city has debts of course, and the Valley would responsible for their fair share of those debts.
The Sherrif of LA County has already said, though, that he could provide police service for the Valley for less than we pay now. Or we could start our own police force. Anyway we look at it, the Valley owns a part of all city assets the same way LA does. We have paid those taxes, same as them(actually, some say more than them).
Could you hurry up and do this already? Here in Chicago we have all these things named “Second City this, Second City that” and it would be nice if it was true again.
Didn’t LA annex San Fernando many years ago anyway?
I think I acknowledged that everything could stay the same. However, I see this as a pretty messy divorce and the mayor and council might refuse to contract with the new city out of spite.