Tensions Rise Over Board Expansion

The effort to expand the Board of Supervisors through an initiative on next week’s ballot has become a grudge match, and the bad feeling deepened Wednesday as both sides hurled accusations at each other during news conferences.

In one corner are unions steamed at county supervisors for a series of blows the five elected officials have dealt to Los Angeles’ resurgent labor movement. Labor is so angry with the board that it has pumped $180,000 into the campaign for Measure A, which would increase the number of supervisors from five to nine.

In the other corner are a majority of the supervisors, who say expansion would be a disaster, making county government costlier and messier. Of course, expansion also would dilute their individual clout.

The lawmakers, aides say, are ready to dip into their own well-stocked campaign war chests to counter a new wave of radio ads that began Tuesday, urging voters to approve the countywide initiative in Tuesday’s general election.

Board expansion has long been the Holy Grail of reformers, who say that the supervisors’ districts, which now contain up to 2 million people each, are far too big. And groups such as the League of Women Voters and Common Cause support Measure A, arguing that smaller districts would mean more responsive government.

Unions also have long backed board expansion, which has failed at the polls twice in recent years. But labor’s support this time has been given a new edge by the recent strife, with union leaders vowing to challenge the board’s power with renewed vigor at the polls next week and in years to come.

“There is no doubt among union leadership in Los Angeles County that we have to change the Board of Supervisors,” said Miguel Contreras, head of the county Federation of Labor.

Though two supervisors support Measure A, three oppose it. On Wednesday, those three--Mike Antonovich, Don Knabe and Zev Yaroslavsky--stood with Los Angeles mayoral candidate Joel Wachs and blasted the campaign as a power grab by public-sector unions that are hoping for smaller districts in which their campaign contributions would have more impact.

“They want a shot at taking over this board,” Yaroslavsky said.

Three hours later, the supervisors supporting the measure--Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--called that a cheap shot.

“When you want to reform county government and people are opposed to it, they’re going to throw a lot of slanderous rhetoric at it,” Molina said.

Still, unions do not deny that they hope the measure shrinks the supervisors’ districts and makes incumbents more vulnerable to outside challenges--or more dependent on labor’s electoral muscle. With their vast districts and campaign funds, no elected incumbent supervisor has lost at the polls in 20 years. The three up for reelection this spring ran unopposed.

“The board feels that they are politically untouchable,” said Damon Moore, political director of the county’s largest union, Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union. “They feel that they can do anything to the people of Los Angeles County and they can pay the price for it.”

Local 660 staged a series of one-day walkouts before a countywide strike collapsed earlier this month. Although the union said it was happy with the contract supervisors awarded its members, bitterness remains.

Supervisors, all of whom sit on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Board of Directors, were also key players in the recent transit strike, which ended with the MTA board winning concessions from its mechanics and bus and rail operators after a monthlong walkout. The board also opposed a proposed $1.25-an-hour raise for low-wage government home-care workers, arguing the county could not afford its share of the increase. It granted a 50-cent raise instead.

And several unions are still negotiating with supervisors for benefit packages. Among them is the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which has sunk the most money into the Measure A campaign--$100,000, plus a separate $7,500 for radio ads last week. The association’s president, Roy Burns, said Wednesday that members were primarily concerned with improving government rather than making a more pliable board for future contract negotiations.

Contreras said the county labor federation is urging members to support expansion and is helping to steer money into the campaign. He also said labor may back a supervisorial term limit initiative in 2002 and has the long-term goal of “taking one of them [a supervisor] out” at the polls.

The county service union also has said it will push an unspecified reform measure in 2002. Its representatives said they contributed $10,000 to the Measure A campaign. With the deputies’ contribution and those of other unions factored in, labor has pledged $180,000 to the measure.

As labor turns its attention to the board, it marks the first serious outside challenge in a decade to the region’s most powerful governmental institution. The last time the board was challenged from the outside was when the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that supervisors conspired to keep Latinos off the board, forced it into a consent decree that created the seat now occupied by Molina.

Differing Evaluations of County’s Needs

Proponents of expanding the board argue that more districts could enable more Latinos, and possibly the first Asian American, to be elected. It could also allow the Antelope and San Gabriel valleys to have their own supervisors.

But opponents say that increasing the number of supervisors would not help county residents. Some argue that a new executive post would be needed to keep the county orderly, while others say there is no good reason to increase the number of elected officials.

“People ask for more police, firefighters, libraries, recreation centers,” said Wachs, a Los Angeles city councilman who is running for mayor. “I’ve never had anyone in 29 years ask for more supervisors.”

Opponents also highlight the unusual way the initiative made it to the ballot. State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), a longtime advocate of increasing the number of elected Latinos who himself will be termed out of office in 2002, threatened to push for a constitutional amendment to expand the board unless supervisors placed the measure on the ballot themselves.

Joining unions as contributors to the campaign are two legislators, Assemblymen Herb Wesson (D-Los Angeles) and Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), who gave a total of $35,000 to the effort. Kicking in $50,000 was a political action group once controlled by Polanco, but now run by Firebaugh and another legislator.

Antonovich on Wednesday labeled the measure “only a lifeline for termed-out legislators.”

If the measure passes, supervisors would redraw their districts to include nine seats next year. Then, in 2002, the empty seats would be filled. The budget for the board offices would be capped at that level to contain the costs of increasing the number of elected officials.