To Your Light Sabers, All!

Secession fever has spread to the planet Coruscant. In the latest “Star Wars” prequel, queen-turned-senator Padme Amidala and Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi fight to preserve the troubled Republic against the Separatists. Yes, it’s only a movie. But this much is true: Any leader worth his or her light saber would fight to keep a great galaxy, a great country--or a great city--from self-destructing.

Mayor James K. Hahn is no Jedi knight, but last week he was out there fighting for Los Angeles. He told the commission deciding whether San Fernando Valley secession should be put to voters in November that its analysis failed to prove that the Valley and the remaining city would stay financially whole. Hahn was right to stand up to a commission that has become more cheerleader than judge of the three secession bids before it. But as important as the legalities is the battle for the hearts of voters on either side of Mulholland Drive, for the heart of a city as diverse and electrifying as any fictional universe.

Angelenos have been remarkably detached from the prospect of dismantling their city. Los Angeles is for the most part a go-along, get-along kind of place. Take a Times poll in March that showed close to 50% support for secession citywide and just over 50% in the Valley. (It would have to win in both to pass.) The same poll found that residents throughout the city were pretty happy with the way things were going.

So why split? The sentiment outside the Valley seems to be, “If they want to go, why not let them?”

Because the Valley is Los Angeles, that’s why. It is the middle-class heart of a city increasingly split between the very rich and the very poor, a place where rising immigrants pursue the American dream of a house with a backyard as fervently as did the grandparents of third- and fourth-generation Angelenos before them. A city depends on its middle class, not just for a tax base but for stability.

The city has problems, of course, given its geographic and demographic breadth. But size and variety also are part of Los Angeles’ allure and energy, drawing artists and entrepreneurs, generating jobs, inspiring hilltop museums and conveying worldwide name recognition and clout.

Breaking up the city would not change how the schools, which are governed separately, are run, although residents often mistakenly cite this as reason to secede. A new Valley city of 1.4 million residents would have far less chance of creating a sense of community--such a sense is another reason cited for secession--than would the much-smaller neighborhood councils created by charter reform, 30 of which have already formed.

When Los Angeles residents from throughout the city voted to rewrite the charter, almost eight decades old, they did so in the belief that they could make this big, frustrating, dynamic, exciting and always surprising city work better. A nascent idea in the City Council to set up a borough system like New York’s is in that same can-do spirit. Han Solo, after all, didn’t pack up and leave when the going got tough. (Well, OK, he thought about it.) He pulled out his screwdriver and coaxed his mechanically challenged spaceship into action, willing to see what he could get it to do. A lot, as it turned out.

Hahn needs to work harder to kindle this kind of proud and adventurous civic spirit. But he can’t save the city alone. To your light sabers, citizens of Los Angeles. All of Los Angeles.