Page One

Arnold Schwarzenegger may be big at the box office, but pollsters say even he doesn’t have enough star power to attract voters to the polls for an election that includes a lackluster governor’s race, secession in Los Angeles and homelessness in San Francisco. 

Only 58 percent of registered voters are expected to go to the polls today — a fraction of a percent better than 1998’s record low for a gubernatorial race, Secretary of State officials said Monday. 

Analysts say Democrat Gray Davis and GOP challenger Bill Simon have turned off their constituents with repeated allegations of corruption and incompetence. Voter after voter complained they were ignoring issues. 

An estimated 25 percent of California voters didn’t commit to either major candidate. 

Ray Wirta, a 58-year-old lifelong Orange County Republican, said he believes Davis has done little in office but he is only voting for Simon as “the lesser of two evils.” 

Democrats, meanwhile, will try for their first sweep in state history. A new poll shows them with significant leads for five of seven offices, including incumbents in the races for lieutenant governor, attorney general and treasurer. 

Los Angeles residents will be asked whether to split Hollywood and the sprawling San Fernando Valley into separate cities. Supporters say LA’s downtown government has short-shrifted the regions on services while critics say the resulting new cities wouldn’t do any better. 

“Secession is by far the foremost issue,” said Dan Biers, a 45-year-old Valley resident who planned to vote against the measure. “There’s very little way I could affect the national issues. There is no president in this election, no senators.” 

A raft of state initiatives and local measures take aim at untamed growth and the sickly California economy. 

With California facing a $15 billion budget deficit, voters are being asked to put the state further into debt by approving more than $18 billion in bond measures for education, water and housing projects. 

Proposition 49, championed by Schwarzenegger, would allocate as much as $550 million in existing school money to before- and after-school programs. 

A Los Angeles County measure seeks a new tax to save the county trauma system from financial collapse. 

A proposed $3.3 billion bond, the largest local bond in California history, would build 120 new schools and create 115,000 new classroom seats in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest.