Hollywood Seeks To Secede

In the shadow of the world-famous Hollywood sign, what used to be seen as divine is now viewed by some as just another dive.

Posh eateries that once lined streets like Hollywood Boulevard have been replaced by seedy check-cashing joints, tattoo parlors, fast-food outlets and junky souvenir stores.

Many residents believe Hollywood might stop falling down around them if it had its own city government looking out for its 160,000 residents, instead of one that is answerable to 3.6 million people.

Now the residents who want to revive the glamour and glitz of Tinseltown's glory days have launched a petition drive to do just that. This week, they kicked off their campaign to secede from sprawling Los Angeles and incorporate as their own city.

Doing so could be a touchy matter.

Petition supporters want to take the world-famous hilltop sign with them, along with the other icons that make Hollywood - from Mann's Chinese Theater to the star-studded Walk of Fame to celebrities like Nicholas Cage and Lorenzo Lamas who call the place home.

The sign could present a challenge because it's part of a Los Angeles public park.

Other local fixtures can't wait to turn their backs on scandal-ridden Los Angeles and strike out on their own.

Take longtime resident Cassandra Peterson, better known to TV horror-movie aficionados as "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark."

"I've actually wanted this forever," she said recently. "Millions of people come here every year to see Hollywood, and when you get here there's nothing here. It's embarrassing."

On Tuesday, the leaders of Hollywood VOTE - Voters Organized Toward Empowerment - held a secession kickoff drive at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, site of the first Academy Awards in 1928.

The first petition signature was that of Johnny Grant, Hollywood's honorary mayor by decree of the Chamber of Commerce.

Separatist leaders have six months to gather some 15,000 signatures, representing 25 percent of the registered voters in the area under consideration. By Thursday morning, VOTE President Fares Wehbe said he already had 1,000 signatures.

If the required signatures are collected, Los Angeles County's Local Agency Formation Commission would undertake a feasibility study, and if results show no negative impact for either Los Angeles or Hollywood, the issue could be placed on the ballot as soon as 2002.

Hollywood was founded in 1887 by a real estate developer. The community was incorporated as a city in 1903, then was annexed to Los Angeles in 1910.

Los Angeles officials have vowed to keep the entertainment center of Southern California within the boundaries of what is now the nation's second-largest city.

According to Larry Calemine, the commission's executive officer, the last time a local community seceded from its parent city was 107 years ago, when Coronado broke away from San Diego.

The process is so complicated, he said, that the feasibility study alone is "a onald Trump divorce to the 10th power."

But supporters are determined that cityhood would help them reawaken the magic of old Hollywood.

On Thursday, tourists and locals milling about outside Mann's Chinese Theater, where for decades celebrities have left their footprints and handprints in cement, agreed.

Many said they would welcome more grandeur, and fewer T-shirt shops.

"This walk of fame, for example," said Theo Ligthart, 50, who was visiting from Amsterdam. "You hear so much about it, but it's very simple. It's nothing, in effect."