Hollywood Group to Start Drive for Secession

HOLLYWOOD —  A group that wants Hollywood to secede from the city of Los Angeles plans to start collecting signatures, representatives told a county commission Wednesday.

If Hollywood Vote garners the signatures of about 15,000 registered voters, it can ask the Local Agency Formation Commission to study the feasibility of Tinsel Town becoming its own city. LAFCO is beginning feasibility studies on the possible secession of the San Fernando Valley and Harbor areas of Los Angeles.

“Hollywood is the most famous city in the world, and yet you come here and you are disappointed,” said Fares Wehbe, president of Hollywood Vote.

Wehbe and other representatives of Hollywood Vote presented LAFCO with a map of the proposed city of Hollywood, which would be bordered roughly by Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the west; Mulholland Highway, Griffith Park and Forest Lawn Drive on the north, Sanborn Avenue on the east and Beverly Boulevard and Clinton Streets to the south.

He said the group has 300 volunteers who will begin collecting signatures next week with the assistance of a professional signature-gathering company.