Bringing the County Up to Date : If Justice Department approves, two major reform issues will be on ballot

Los Angeles County Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon’s recent announcement that he will resign, and the controversy that led to his decision, brought a sharp new focus on the need to reform the county government.

Despite enormous changes in the region, the structure of county government remains fundamentally the same as it was more than a century ago. When it was first established in the early 1850s, the County Board of Supervisors had five members who represented a population of 3,530--one supervisor for about every 700 constituents. Today, the same number of supervisors represents 8.5 million residents--about 1.7 million each. The inadequacy of such meager representation is even more dramatic in light of the fact that each of the five supervisorial districts has more people than each of the 17 least-populated states.

Two proposals, which still must be approved by the federal Department of Justice to get on the November ballot, would make needed changes in county government.

One involves creating smaller supervisorial districts by expanding the Board of Supervisors to seven or nine members. The measure would be drafted to contain costs by requiring that any appropriations for budget and staff not exceed current county funding levels. New supervisorial district lines would be drawn to ensure that minority voters would not be disenfranchised.

The second proposal would replace the chief administrative officer, now accountable only to the supervisors, with an elected county executive. That change would allow the board, which has both executive and legislative responsibilities, to focus on the job of legislating--which includes responding to public concerns. Such response cannot be sufficient with a board that must spread its attention over such a huge range of governmental functions.

The Justice Department must move quickly on this reform proposal, not just to ensure that it complies with the spirit and the letter of the Voting Rights Act but to give Los Angeles County voters a chance to reform a badly outdated system of government.