"One of the things they swore they wouldn't do was to run for office. I thought that was great," she remembers. But that pledge didn't last. Shabel says she now believes it was never sincere in the first place. "As I got to know the people behind it, I said, 'No way.'"
Just about every major Hollywood neighborhood and community organization that would be the natural base for any breakaway movement opposes the idea. Among the key community groups against secession are the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the Los Feliz Improvement Association, the Hollywood Highlands Democratic Club, the Hollywood/Vine Association, the Melrose Hill Neighborhood Association, the Melrose Neighborhood Association, the Sunset/Doheny Homeowners Group and the Beverly/Wilshire Neighborhood Association.
"I wouldn't vote for Gene La Pietra to be dogcatcher," says real estate developer Tom Gilmore, who's had his share of run-ins with L.A. city officials, and now finds himself one of their allies in opposing Hollywood independence.
"My only experience is that he has been a player, but not a particularly welcome player."
Gilmore belongs to a merchants' organization involved in Hollywood redevelopment. He lives in what would be the new city and also owns the Hollywood Equitable Building at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Like Shabel, Gilmore doesn't trust La Pietra.
He says the whole idea of secession doesn't make any sense. "If you can separate some of the crap from reality, secession doesn't hold up on any level. The possibility of everything being better is extremely, extremely low. By the same token, the possibility of everything getting worse is extremely high."
Larry Gross agrees with Gilmore, and that probably doesn't happen often. But secession has created some wacky bedfellows. Gilmore is a landlord who owns several apartment buildings all over town, some of which are involved in legal squabbles with tenants. Gross, a longtime Hollywood activist, runs the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants-rights organization. But both find themselves on the same side when it's concerning La Pietra. "This guy has visions of grandeur for himself," says Gross.
"There's no grassroots movement for secession in Hollywood. It's just a small group of people looking out for their own interests," says Gross. He remembers La Pietra from his West Hollywood City Council campaign in 1986. La Pietra ran against Abbe Land, who hired Gross to work on her campaign.
"La Pietra spent more money per vote than anyone," Gross says. La Pietra spent $108 per vote and lost by more than a 2-1 margin.
"Now he's trying to create a city for him to be king of," says Gross. "This is all his idea. Without his funding or efforts, there's no mass community-based [interest] to create a city of Hollywood. It just feeds his very big ego."
Christine Pelisek contributed to this story.
