CAO Stalemate: Supervisors Seeking a Tightrope Walker

After weeks of behind-the-scenes lobbying and closed-door negotiations, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is stalemated on the selection of a new county chief executive--a deadlock that reflects the position’s importance to the supervisors both politically and in shaping the services that touch millions of their constituents’ lives.

An original list of five finalists has been expanded to seven as the board--sharply divided with three conservatives and two liberals--struggles to reach a consensus on a successor to former Chief Administrative Officer Harry L. Hufford, who retired this month after 10 years in the job to take a position with the prestigious downtown law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Little has been said publicly about the discussions, but informed observers say the top three contenders for the job, which pays up to $101,974 a year, are: James Hankla, executive director of the county’s Community Development Commission and Housing Authority, who is favored by some conservatives; Ted Reed, the county’s acting chief administrative officer and former right-hand man to Hufford, and Richard Wittenberg, chief administrative officer of Ventura County. Both Reed and Wittenberg appear to have the liberals’ support.

Other finalists are Randall Bacon, San Diego County’s welfare director; Richard B. Dixon, Los Angeles County’s treasurer-tax collector; Frank Zolin, executive officer of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, and Richard Jacobsen, deputy chief administrative officer in San Diego County.

Sources said board members last week were close to choosing Hankla, who has both public- and private-sector development experience and was reportedly added to the finalists’ list at the request of conservative Supervisor Michael Antonovich. As director of the Long Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, he helped guide the revival of that city’s downtown.

However, liberal Supervisor Ed Edelman expressed last-minute concerns, and the consensus began to unravel shortly before Supervisor Pete Schabarum departed on a trip to South Africa, sources said. No decision is expected at least until Schabarum returns early next month.

While technically the conservatives have the three necessary votes to make a selection, the supervisors and the CAO candidates alike feel that to be effective, the person selected must have the support of at least four supervisors.

Conservative Supervisor Deane Dana said the selection now may take some time, and the list of candidates could be expanded. “I think we’re going to have trouble. The object is to get everyone happy,” he said, adding that has been difficult because of the conflicting philosophies, styles and interests of the board members.

Most observers agree that to survive, the CAO, much as Hufford did, must satisfy the majority but also steer a middle course between the opposing factions. The pressures to tilt one way or the other are constant, largely because the chief administrative officer, with a staff of 250, churns out the stacks of weekly analyses and recommendations that form the basis of virtually all policy decisions. He is the county’s dispenser of official and supposedly nonpolitical information. “He has the sanctity of objectivity,” said liberal Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

As a result, each supervisor tugs at the CAO to validate his point of view--whether on the need for a new health center in his district or on the potential impact of a controversial state ballot measure.

“It puts you frequently in the middle because you are often not presenting facts and recommendations that any one of them wants to see,” Hufford said.

Hufford’s positive analysis of the savings generated by a controversial policy of contracting with private firms to provide county services aided the conservatives in pushing ahead on the voter-approved program, despite objections from liberals, unions and the county grand jury that the savings have been inflated, minorities have been unfairly affected by job losses and the quality of some work has been inferior.

On other occasions, however, Hufford supported the liberals. He strongly recommended in 1983 that the conservatives end their practice of exempting the Sheriff’s Department and other law enforcement agencies from the large budget cuts that social programs had been undergoing since passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. While the recommendation was rejected, it made it politically more difficult for the conservatives to continue a hotly debated spending policy.

In short, the supervisors’ political self-interest is at stake in the CAO selection process. Board members want to ensure they can work comfortably with the new executive and not find themselves at a disadvantage when he exercises his substantial information-gathering, budgeting and program oversight power.

“His recommendations every Tuesday affect our individual districts,” Edelman said. “There has to be equal access and confidence in him.”

“You’re protecting your own flank,” Hahn said. “He controls flow of information to you and from you . . . he is the staff officer of the board collectively and the staff officer of the supervisors individually. He can’t be partisan.”

The CAO serves as a “fix-it” man for the individual supervisors--making sure there is follow-through on pet projects and that service problems that may be triggering calls from constituents are worked out.

“We tell him what to do,” Dana said. “But he decides how to get it done. If we do not get the right person, then we have to step in. We’ve already got enough problems around here.”

While the CAO has no direct control over individual departments, he has considerable power--he is sometimes called the “sixth supervisor”--over their budgets.

He writes the county’s book-length $6-billion spending plan, which is larger than the budgets of more than two-thirds of the states. The overwhelming majority of his recommendations are routinely adopted. While the CAO must work within the general policy guidelines set by the board majority, he has the final word on thousands of lesser items, such as staffing neighborhood recreation centers, parking fees at the beaches or program funding for the Museum of Natural History.

“The CAO puts his own stamp on what he recommends in terms of his own priorities,” said one top county administrator. “He can set a tone.”

“The first thing I think about when I think of the CAO is the budget,” said one director of a large department who asked not to be identified. “It’s a pretty powerful position. Department heads can go to the board to request funds, but it’s much harder if it’s not in the CAO’s recommended budget. (His power) is . . . information and how he presents it (to the board). He can make life miserable.”

Eddy Tanaka, head of the Department of Public Social Services, said: “He is in a very strong position. He has constant contact with individual board members.”

The department heads who are on the front lines in delivering the broad range of county services are monitoring the selection process closely. Some are lobbying supervisors for their candidates. “They want someone receptive to their problems,” said one director of a small department, who asked not to be named. Department heads also are concerned that the CAO be secure and independent enough to stand up to board members occasionally when they place unrealistic demands on the departments--in the words of one administrator, someone “willing to choose the mountains you’re going to die on.”

One of the CAO’s increasingly influential roles is overseeing the county’s lobbying effort in Sacramento. As such, the CAO can be a major strategist in shaping legislation affecting local governments throughout the state. Hufford was widely credited with giving the county a clearer and more effective voice in Sacramento in recent years.

Relations between the county and powerful Democratic leaders in the Legislature hit a low point in 1981, the first year after the conservatives took control of the Board of Supervisors and sharply cut health and welfare programs. Emotional charges flew back and forth between the county Hall of Administration and the Capitol, but Hufford followed up by quietly beefing up the county’s lobbying program and repairing lines of communication with key lawmakers through regular luncheons and work sessions.

Dana said Sacramento will be a key focus for the new CAO, because of the county’s increasing reliance on state funds, particularly in some of its costliest programs, including health, welfare and criminal justice.

As for what the supervisors are looking for in a CAO, Dana said: “I get the general feeling that the board wants to go off in a new direction.”