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The Valley attempted to secede in the 1970s, but the state passed a law barring city formation without the approval of the City Council. In 1997, Assemblymen Bob Hertzberg and Tom McClintock helped pass a bill that would make it easier for the Valley to secede by removing the City Council veto. AB 62 was signed into law by Governor Pete Wilson. Meanwhile, a grassroots movement to split the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and create new San Fernando Valley-based school districts became the focal point of the desire to leave the city. Though the state rejected the idea of Valley-based districts, it remained an important rallying point for Hertzberg’s mayoral campaign, which proved unsuccessful.

Measure F
In 2002, the San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles again seriously campaigned to secede from the rest of the city and become its own new independent and incorporated city. The movement gained some momentum, as many San Fernando Valley residents within city limits felt they were not receiving Los Angeles city services on par with the rest of the city and their tax contributions.

Before secession could come out for a vote, the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) studied the fiscal viability of the new city and decided that the new city must mitigate any fiscal loss incurred by the rest of Los Angeles. LAFCO concluded that a new San Fernando Valley city would be financially viable, but would need to mitigate the $60.8 million that the remaining portion of Los Angeles would lose in revenues. Secessionists took this figure as evidence that the Valley gave more money to Los Angeles than it received back in services. This triggered a petition drive led by Valley VOTE[25] to put secession on the ballot. Measures F (the proposed new SFV city) and H (the proposed new Hollywood City, which was on the same ballot) not only decided whether the valley became a city, but voters also got to pick a new name for it. The proposed names on the ballot were San Fernando Valley, Rancho San Fernando, Mission Valley, Valley City, and Camelot. (There was already a separate City of San Fernando in the San Fernando Valley, so that option was not available.) Along with Measures F and H, elections were held for fourteen council members and a mayor.

Valley politicians such as State Senator Richard Alarcón and City Council President Alex Padilla opposed the initiatives. The leader of the LAUSD breakup and former congresswoman and busing opponent Bobbi Fiedler also campaigned against secession. Supporters pointed out that the Valley suffered from many of the same problems of poverty, crime, drug and gang activity as the rest of the city.

Measure F did not receive the necessary votes to pass for the Valley to secede. The proposal passed with a slight majority in the Valley, but was defeated by the rest of Los Angeles due to a heavily-funded campaign against it led by then-Los Angeles mayor James Hahn. Republican Assemblyman Keith Richman of Northridge was voted in as mayor of the stillborn city, which according to vote returns would have been named San Fernando Valley. Richman and other activists behind the secession movement attempted to redirect their civic energies toward influencing Los Angeles city politics, but their efforts largely fizzled. Hertzberg’s 2005 mayoral campaign, which received heavy support in the Valley, nonetheless finished in third place (only a few percentage points behind incumbent Mayor Hahn), and no secession supporters were elected to positions on the Los Angeles City Council.

Had the measure passed, the southern portion of the city would have remained as the city of Los Angeles, with about 2.1 million people. The northern Valley portion would have created a new municipality of 211 square miles (546 km2) with about 1.3 million residents. If secession had passed, the new City of San Fernando Valley would have been the seventh most populous city in the United States, after New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.