REGION: Stone proposes secession

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone has long criticized California's leaders for the state's fiscal woes.
Now, he wants to take things a step further.
Stone proposed late Thursday that Riverside County take the lead in pushing for 13 counties to secede from the state.
Fed up with high taxes and continued raids on local government funds, Stone said the counties of Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono should form the new state of South California.
"We have a state Legislature that has gone wild. They just don't care. Their goal was to get a balanced budget so they could continue to get a paycheck," Stone said by telephone late Thursday. "There is only one solution: A serious secession from the liberal arm of the state of California. I know the state of California can do better."
The proposal came the same day Brown signed budget legislation that will divert about $14 million in 2011-12 vehicle license fee revenue from four new Riverside County cities: Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Menifee and Wildomar. Officials said the cut would cripple the new cities and possibly force them to disincorporate.
Stone said he plans to present the proposal to the Board of Supervisors on July 12. He will ask his colleagues to endorse the idea and begin working to bring together officials from throughout the region. He hopes for a conference on the topic at the Riverside Convention Center.
Stone's new state would have no term limits for lawmakers, a part-time legislature and Prop. 13-like controls on property taxes.
"I never said this was going to be easy but it will provoke a lot of thought throughout the state," he said.
Stone's suggestion brought both criticism and praise.
"A secessionist movement? What is this, 1860?" Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.
Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster called Stone's proposal a "crazy distraction."
"We should begin to get our own budget balanced, which we haven't done yet, and put in place some of the reforms we need in this county before we try and go and restructure the government in the great state of California," Buster said.
"The temperature has gone up in Riverside County and it seems Supervisor Stone has gotten too much sun recently," Buster said.
San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Josie Gonzales said that only after considerable thought and research would she consider the idea, even though she acknowledged the Inland region is often shortchanged.
"This is one great state," she said. "We need to learn how to pull, how to push, how to enable, how to progress together."
Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, said secession has no chance of success. But the proposal could spark worthy debate, he said.
"Secession isn't really a serious and legitimate topic, but the distribution of tax revenue is," he said.
Former Northern California legislator Stan Statham pushed legislation in the early 1990s to split California into two or three states.
It's become a better idea as California's population approaches 40 million, he said.
"People like to gather together and govern themselves and now this state is so big. It seems so wide and so dysfunctional," Statham said. "What do people in Alturas have to do with people in Los Angeles? Nothing."
As for Stone's proposal actually succeeding, Statham said the odds are long. But there's always a chance, Statham said.
"Every decade, people talk about it more and more," he said.
Wildomar Councilwoman Bridgette Moore said Stone has a point, especially after the passage of a state budget that strips cities of vehicle license fees. Those fees account for roughly 22 percent of Wildomar's general fund, according to its city manager.
"Maybe it's something to look into," she said. "I feel that Sacramento doesn't care about us right now."
And Inland economist John Husing said he has heard talk of secession, not in the Inland region, but among business leaders in the Los Angeles area.
"There has been some real frustration," he said. "There is such an extreme difference between the two ends of the state."
"I am a Northern Californian by birth," Husing added. "No one I know in Northern California would oppose getting rid of Southern California."