Venice Granted Independence from City of Los Angeles

On Friday, in a special City Council session, Venice was de-annexed by the City of Los Angeles by a unanimous vote of 15-0.

Venice’s former L.A. City Councilman, Bill Rosendahl, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the decision at a press conference following the closed-door meeting.

“With 40,000 creative, headstrong people, that town is essentially ungovernable,” Villaraigosa said.

“Venetians can now live in their RVs, autos, motorcycle sidecars, whatever, whenever and where ever,” Rosendahl added. “Or not. Whatever they decide.”

Venice resident Zuma Dogg has been appointed interim mayor until a special election can be held on July 14, 2011.

“We already got an  election in June for Congress and Governor Moonbeam kept hoping for a tax poll in June, so we wanted one just for us,” Dogg said.

He turned to a prominent Venice resident for scheduling advice.

“Lindsay Lohan wanted that we hold it on Bastille Day. She has this thing about freeing prisoners,” he said. “Viva la Venice, dude.”

The reborn city will take over the geographic area of the Venice neighborhood council which includes the beachfront peninsula. Residents there were not thrilled.

“I bought an oceanview condo here thinking that I moved to Marina del Rey, an upscale community. It even says so on my zip code,” said Venice native Dr. Randy Jones. “What was the point of my going to medical school if I’m suddenly living back in Dogtown?”

The new city will be funded primarily by taxes on medical marijuana sales and parking tickets. Dogg annnounced an immediate lifiting of all restrictions on dispensaries. “I’ve been smoking since I was a kid, and it ain’t hurt me none,” Dogg said.

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation followed with a statement that all day Saturday it will be pitching in to help the new city raise revenue, by painting the few remaining gray curbs red.

“Since citations for unauthorized handicapped parking cost more, we’ll also be adding a substantial number of double-car-length blue curbs at random,” said LADOT’s westside transportation engineer Michael May.

Venice’s civic center will be reestablished at Beyond Baroque, the community’s former city hall and SPARC, the Social and Public Resource Art Center, which occupied the former jail. Tenants there were served with surprise eviction notices based on an unnoticed clause in their leases stating that the city government could move back into the space if it were ever reconstituted. Judy Baca, one of SPARC founders, was sanguine about the change.

“With artists like Bansky and Smear getting their start by breaking the law with their grafitti, there is poetic justice in seeing our exhibition space revert to being a jail,” Baca said.

Unfortunately, the independence vote will leave Venice without a water supply, since by law the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power can only provide water to L. A. City residents. LADWP has announced that it will delay turning off the water to Venice until the end of today, so that Venetians have enough time to fill up their jugs. Joe Ramallo, a spokesman for LADWP, didn’t foresee any problems.

“From what I’ve seen, Venice residents prefer alcohol to water, and they don’t seem to shower, so we expect most of them to not even notice the water was cut off,” he said.

This afternoon, the entire Venice Neighborhood Council, led by Mayor Dogg, will appear in a parade riding classic skate boards from the Windward Traffic Circle to Venice High School, to celebrate Venice’s Independence Day, April 1, 2011.