Supervisors Let Voters Decide Board Expansion

Voters this fall will decide whether to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from five to nine members.

Prodded by a termed-out lawmaker in Sacramento threatening to put the issue on the statewide ballot, supervisors reluctantly agreed Tuesday to place the matter before county voters. The lawmaker, state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), has previously said he would yield to supervisors if they acted.

The measure would nearly double the number of supervisors, each of whom currently represents close to 2 million people. Critics say the supervisors have too much power and cannot be challenged in an election because of the size of their districts. An incumbent supervisor has not been defeated at the polls since 1980.

But supervisors balked at placing a second measure on the ballot, to create a county executive to act as a mayor and check the board’s power. Instead, the board delayed calling a commission to study the matter until after the November elections.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who had pushed for the county executive post and abstained from the expansion vote, said he would campaign against expansion because a larger board would be chaotic without an executive.

Expansion has failed at the polls three times since the 1960s.