How to Improve L.A. County : Vote yes on Nov. 3 for direly needed Board of Supervisors reforms B and C

When the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration was built in 1961, the hearing room for the Board of Supervisors was designed to accommodate more than the five elected officials who currently use it. Obviously, county leaders knew even then that this region would need more public representatives to adequately serve a growing population.

On Election Day, voters will have a marvelous opportunity to finally bring that important level of government--which oversees the Sheriff’s Department, local courts, the public health and welfare systems and even most of our beaches--into the modern era. They can also make county government more responsive and accountable. And, just as noteworthy in tight budgetary times, they can do it without adding to the cost of local government. Or so we hope.

By voting in favor of ballot Proposition B, voters would create a new elected county executive who would provide a balance to the Board of SuperBoard chambers: Four more?

visors. By approving a companion measure, Proposition C, they would make the board more responsive by expanding it from five to nine members.

Both measures would take effect in 1994 if approved. Proposition B can be enacted without Proposition C. But if Proposition B fails, and no county executive’s office is created, then the Board of Supervisors cannot be expanded. The drafters of both measures wisely understood that a bigger Board of Supervisors, while an improvement, would still lack accountability without a strong executive to serve as a check and balance.

Currently no one person has to take responsibility for the collective decision-making of the five board members, allowing them to leave important public business to faceless bureaucrats. The most egregious example of this was last year’s appalling decision to raise county pensions by $265 million over 30 years with nary a public hearing. The administrative officer who pushed that pension hike through resigned, a sacrificial victim to public wrath, but the real responsibility lay with the supervisors who lazily approved that pension hike.

Propositions B and C also include an all-important spending limit. The budget for all the new officials cannot exceed the budget for the five current supervisors and their administrative officer.

Los Angeles needs more modern, responsive county government. Propositions B and C would help get us there. We urge a yes vote on both.