‘Supervisors’ Rip Priorities of Real Board

Pete Schabarum was there--or rather, a smiling picture of the lawmaker, propped up in his usual seat at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. But the other people presiding over the meeting Saturday at the Hall of Administration were less recognizable.

The “supervisors” on this day consisted of a gay activist, a homeless man, a former drug addict, a union representative and Schabarum’s photograph. Together, they formed a mock board that was organized by the Alternative Budget Coalition, a group of local activists which had rented the room for the morning.

For two hours, they listened approvingly as a succession of critics lambasted the real county board’s spending priorities. Then they “voted” for massive increases in funding for health care, child care and programs for the homeless.

“As the only holdover from the old board, do you have anything to say?” said gay activist and mock board member Mark Kostopoulos, addressing the picture of Schabarum, whose forehead had been stamped in red with the word “Guilty.”

None of the county supervisors was at the meeting.

Participants directed their most bitter remarks at the real board’s proposed $10.2-billion budget.

“I think if this (mock) board had been here two years ago, my daughter might still be alive,” said Gloria Panitch, the mother of a Santa Monica mental health worker who was stabbed to death in her office last year by a client. “There was no money for a 25-cent buzzer or even a window on her door so she could see who was coming in.”

Others railed against proposed cuts in funds for AIDS treatment, mental health outpatient programs and child care, while funds for the Sheriff’s Department continue to rise.

But the 100 or so people in the audience mostly seemed to revel in the uncharacteristic lack of formality of this board meeting.

“Ordinarily, they don’t let you sit in the first three rows,” said James Hulse, a member of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, Los Angeles (ACT UP/LA), which disrupted a Board of Supervisors meeting last month. “There would be 40 uniformed officers in riot gear behind that door. You’d get three minutes to talk, and most of the supervisors wouldn’t pay any attention.”

A man calling himself “Richard Trixon” took Chief Administrative Officer Richard Dixon’s seat and haughtily defended the regular board, whose members are white males.

“We’ve just spent $3 million to try to keep it that way,” said Trixon, who was identified as Tony Arn, a member of ACT UP/LA. He referred to a federal judge’s ruling last week that county supervisorial districts discriminated against Latinos, a ruling the board plans to appeal. “We plan to spend $2 million more of your bucks to fight for the right to run the county as we please,” Arn said.

The audience booed him off the stage.

Organizers of the event said they wanted to dramatize the whittling down of social service programs since conservatives became a majority on the board in 1980.

“There’s been a massive switch in priorities,” said John Suggs of the Los Angeles Countywide Coalition for the Homeless, one of the organizers of the event. “The sheriff’s budget has gone up 108% since 1983, and the mental health budget has gone up 1.7%.”