Valley Secession

* Columnist Scott Harris’ attack on [state] Sen. Bill Lockyear’s peace offering to Valley secession advocates (“Any Friend of Paula’s Is a Friend of Mine,” Jan. 21) is typical of Harris’s peculiar in-your-face style of journalism.

Harris cites an unrelated 1982 case (Yorba Linda vs. Fullerton Joint Union High School District) as prima facie evidence that any detachment movement requires a full vote of the entire district of which the detaching community is a part. If Harris is correct, then someone should tell the cities of Calabasas, Malibu and West Hollywood that their [incorporations] were illegal because they were done without a countywide [or citywide] vote.

When Lockyear agreed to meet with Valley community and business leaders to discuss the City Council’s unfair power to veto any detachment efforts, it was because he feels, as we do, that the veto power is not what democracy is all about.

As one of the dozen participants in the private Jan. 15 meeting with Lockyear, I was impressed with his attentiveness to our concerns and his willingness to listen. His answer to our problems was a promise to repeal the unfair law that allows the City Council to squash any community’s attempt to break away from Los Angeles and set up its own local government. Hopefully, he will deliver on this promise and will be able to restore a basic right to all Angelenos. The matter of citywide versus local votes is an entirely different issue.

Meanwhile, if residents of Los Angeles elect a thoughtful and sincere charter reform commission in April, there is no question that the city charter can be rewritten in such a way that all residents will have an equal voice and the Lockyear bill will never be needed.

WALTER N. PRINCE

Northridge