The State : A Race That May Determine the Direction of County Government : Politics: Edelman’s successor will likely be positioned as the swing vote at a time when money is tight and demands for services are multiplying.

It is the best of jobs, it is the worst of jobs.

Time was when the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors ruled as “five little kings.” Within their fiefdoms, they wielded near-absolute power largely outside the public’s glare. Life was good and reelection virtually assured.

That’s why Ed Edelman’s retirement announcement set off a flurry of predictions that hordes of politicians would stampede into the race to replace him. But, so far, the contest is not shaping up into a free-for-all. Why?

First, it will be a while before the field is set--until mid-February, after filing for the 1994 elections closes. Politicians looking to move up may find several open statewide offices more attractive. Election to the board has not been a successful launching pad to higher office.

Also at work is the Street Car Theory of Politics: You have to be waiting on the right corner, at the right time, with the correct fare in your pocket, or the political street car will pass you by. Some politicians won’t risk losing their current job to run; others don’t have the financial resources to get on board. There are still others for whom the 3rd District is the wrong corner or 1994 the wrong time.

The street car may have come too late for defeated Councilwoman Joy Picus. It may have arrived too soon for just-elected Councilman Richard Alarcon. And it could be tough for Councilwoman Ruth Galanter to raise the fare.

State Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti may find the timing wrong--in this era of voter antipathy toward politicians, he could be tarred by the political scandals that engulfed other state Senators on Roberti’s leadership watch.

For Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the Street Car Theory may--finally--work in his favor. He’s in the right district; he’ll have the fare, and he doesn’t have to risk his seat to run. But Yaroslavsky, like all officeholders running in 1994, will have to look anxiously over his shoulder for a possible Riordanesque outsider.

Whoever succeeds Edelman will quickly learn that the job of supervisor is no longer a political plum. The stakes have changed, and so has the world in which the board functions.

County budgets grow tighter even as the demand for county services escalates. Proposition 13 virtually destroyed the property-tax base that paid for many of these services. The tab, and the policy control that always follows funding authority, shifted to the Legislature.

Last year, Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature raided county property-tax revenues to help cover a projected $9-billion state budget deficit. This year, California faces another shortfall, estimated to be about $6 billion. One Sacramento insider says “that will mean more money out of the county’s hide”--in the teeth of a potential $600 million to $1.1 billion deficit in the county’s own $13.5 billion budget. Edelman’s successor, this observer contends, will be faced with spending “most of the next budget cycle figuring out how to cut from welfare and hospitals (to meet increased public-safety demands) with no money.” The “rock and the hard place” in this “are BIG TIME.”

Voters, furthermore, don’t appear ready to give up the power over government they’ve accrued via the ballot box. The electorate now seems interested and active in issues that used to pass nearly undetected through the County Hall of Administration. Supervisors are left to micromanage an empire they once owned.

The press, including the national corps, began to seriously focus on county government during the reapportionment battle and subsequent special election that brought Gloria Molina onto the board in 1991. Molina’s outspokenness has made county issues--and the supervisors responsible for managing them--more visible. For Supervisor Deane Dana, the heightened visibility led to a tough reelection race.

The lesson was not lost on Edelman and it won’t be ignored by his potential successors. The 3rd Supervisorial District boasts a highly educated and politically aware electorate, composed of San Fernando Valley homeowners, Santa Monica Mountains environmentalists, a sizable gay community and the Westside Jewish community. That means, says one observer, “the normal political trash and flash may not work.” The contest will elevate county elections into the “big leagues” of campaigning--highly sophisticated, highly stratified, highly visible, and highly expensive.

The stakes are high, indeed. Conservatives held the balance of power on the board through much of the 1980s. Molina’s election shifted it back to the liberals. Edelman’s retirement puts the liberal majority at risk again, and it will remain so no matter who replaces him.

Reapportionment shifted the 3rd District into the San Fernando Valley, diluting liberal Edelman’s secure Westside base and creating a more moderate seat. Whether the next supervisor is a Democrat--as the demographics and registration tend to favor--or a Republican--perhaps propelled by Valley voters who went solidly for Richard Riordan--he or she will likely reflect the increasingly schizophrenic nature of the district.

As a result, the new supervisor will likely be positioned as the board’s swing vote--squarely between liberals Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Molina and conservatives Mike Antonovich and Dana. He or she will play a pivotal role in setting board priorities, just when there is not enough money to fund them all.

That means district voters will have the power to determine the direction of county government at a time when its mandates to provide adequately for health, welfare and public safety are battered by economic realities.

Because of this, county residents and local media need to pay particular attention to this race.

It would be a far, far better thing that they do than many of them have ever done.