Supervisors Retain Milk Panel Despite Conflict Charges

Los Angeles County’s obscure Milk Commission will remain in business, despite charges that it is a captive of the lone company it regulates, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

Supervisors rejected a recommendation by the county’s chief administrative officer to do away with the commission, whose sole mission is to oversee the production, distribution and sale of raw milk.

Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon recommended that the state, which regulates pasteurized milk, take over the commission’s duties. He complained that the six-member commission relies exclusively on the lone company it regulates--Stueve Brothers Farms--for financial support and warned that such a cozy relationship compromises the panel.

A Stueve Brothers spokesman said the dairy pays between $30,000 and $50,000 a year to support the commission’s activities. Most of that money goes for testing but there is no requirement for public disclosure of exactly how funds are spent, Dixon said.

Also, commission members receive $25 a meeting, paid by Stueve Brothers.

Last May, Dixon was ordered to look into the commission after a Bay Area judge, in an unrelated case, called the county commission a “captive” of the dairy.

Dixon also questioned whether Los Angeles County should, through a quirk in state law, continue to regulate a dairy that is located in San Bernardino County and monitor raw milk that is sold statewide.

The commission was created in 1968 when raw milk dairies were located in Los Angeles County.

Stueve Brothers Farms claims to be the state’s largest raw milk dairy, producing 8,000 to 10,000 gallons per day.

“There are presently no established rules or regulations governing operations of the commission, or the manner by which the members are to be compensated,” Dixon said.

But Supervisor Pete Schabarum argued, “To have someone insinuate that for $25 they’re in the hip pocket of the dairy is absolutely ridiculous.”

The supervisors’ vote came after a personal appeal from 71-year-old Harold Stueve, owner of the dairy, who warned that a state takeover of the commission’s duties would bring an end to raw milk sales in California.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich expressed similar concerns, saying that consumers’ “freedom of choice” was at issue.

In a related matter, the board deadlocked 2 to 2 on a recommendation by Dixon to ask the state Fair Political Practices Commission to look into Milk Commission Chairman Paul M. Fleiss’ work as a paid consultant to an attorney for the raw milk producer. The matter will be decided when Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who has been ill, resumes his board duties.

The board nonetheless ordered the chief administrative officer to draft standards for the operation of the commission.