SPECIAL REPORT / ELECTION PREVIEW : DECISION ’94 / A Voter’s Guide to State and Local Elections : L.A. County Races : SUPERVISORS

3RD DISTRICT

* Duties: The five-member board oversees a $13-billion government enterprise larger than most state governments. The county provides health care and welfare assistance to the disadvantaged and extensive fire, parks and library services. The sheriff and district attorney are also funded by the county budget. The 3rd District encompasses the Westside, including the cities of Malibu, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, and most of the San Fernando Valley.

* Major candidates: Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky was the first to jump into the race for this nonpartisan job after incumbent Ed Edelman announced his retirement in December. Yaroslavsky faces retired Fire Captain Don Wallace, who is a former aide to Edelman, and two other candidates, Elgin Trammell Sr., a former gang member and youth counselor, and Michael Hirsch, an environmental consultant.

* Issues: The election is Yaroslavsky’s to lose, and with a $1-million-plus campaign war chest and a long list of endorsements, the veteran Westside lawmaker is leaving little to chance. Yaroslavsky has pledged to attack waste in county government, dismantle what he calls the board’s secretive practices and bring campaign finance reforms to county politics. Wallace has said that as an aide to Edelman he has been the supervisor-in-training for several years. He has expressed support for term limits and campaign finance reforms. Trammell has said he wants to make county bureaucracy friendlier, while Hirsch, the only Republican in the race, has pledged to be an environmental leader.

1ST DISTRICT

* Supervisor Gloria Molina is running unopposed in her bid to represent the Eastside district for a second term.

* History: The 1990s have been years of upheaval for county government. Molina, the board’s first-ever Latino, took over a seat held for years by the board’s most conservative member. In 1992, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, an African American attorney, replaced retiring board member Kenneth Hahn, a veritable institution on the board. The departure of Edelman, who has been a supervisor for almost two decades, and the likely election of Yaroslavsky would put a new generation of liberal Democrats in power at the Hall of Administration and probably accelerate the impetus for change.