The mighty 2nd

Was Bernard C. Parks quicker to endorse Barack Obama than Mark Ridley-Thomas? Was Ridley-Thomas quicker to condemn the management of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center than Parks? Will Parks do the bidding of big business? Is Ridley-Thomas in the pocket of big labor?

Those are the kinds of questions most often asked by pundits about the candidates vying to succeed Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke in the June 3 election. Voters want to know the answers, and that’s fine. But there is far more to this race than who is backing whom, who said what when, or how much money they have raised. The people in the 2nd Supervisorial District who are currently voting by mail or who will vote at the polls in two weeks have a decision before them that could more profoundly affect their lives, and perhaps the lives of everyone in the county, than will their vote in the presidential election in November.

The importance of county government is often lost on residents, perhaps because it’s an entity that serves two interdependent but often separate populations. For one universe, the county manifests itself as art and entertainment. It is an evening concert on the lawn at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, a performance of “Tosca” at the Los Angeles County Music Center or a Van Gogh exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The county patrols beaches. It certifies gas pumps to make sure customers are not shortchanged.

For the other population, the county is the embodiment of hope and, all too often, trouble and despair. Los Angeles County programs and employees pull abused or neglected children from families crippled by drugs or crime and send them to foster care. Once there, statistics show, children become far more likely to become clients of other heartbreaking county programs: probation, jail, drug rehab, mental health treatment, homelessness placement. For this population, “county” means jail or perhaps a public hospital emergency room.

Looking at Mississippi and Ohio, the Children’s Defense Fund detects a “cradle-to-prison pipeline” that feeds on race and poverty and is aided and abetted -- and most often is actually run -- by government. But Los Angeles County’s pipeline is larger, and at least as destructive, as those in distant states. And in the 2nd District, the pipeline can seem more like a vacuum cleaner.

The district is the historical center of the county’s African American community, and now is becoming a home for a booming population of Latino immigrants. Another county district -- the 3rd, for example, which is made up mostly of incorporated cities and scenic parkland -- could grow richer with or without county government. But in the 2nd District, there is an inextricable link between the county and the quality of life. One failed or failing county program after another has its largest client base here: the tragic King-Harbor Hospital, now a shrunken daytime clinic that does nothing to meet the emergency medical needs of South Los Angeles or, in fact, the entire county. The Probation Department, currently operating under a consent decree. The Sheriff’s Department, which operates jails under a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union.

County supervisors often shrug at these failures, dismissing them as the inevitable, tragic consequence of too little federal and state funding, or illegal immigration, or the obscure regulations of some other entity. Afraid to cede the power they do have, the supervisors chafe at the prospect of change. They often shun public scrutiny and have invented a culture of bureaucratic fear so bizarre that a reporter’s call to a department functionary can result in a time-consuming and carefully crafted memorandum to all five supervisors detailing the questions asked and the answers given.

The county government needs direction, and the 2nd District needs a leader. The next supervisor must have a bigger scope than reopening a medical center; he must work to revamp the structure of healthcare in South Los Angeles. He must champion the people sent from Dependency Court to Delinquency Court to jail and to the street. He must use creative thinking, a little political bullying and a hefty dose of smarts to actually remove people from the pipeline.

Los Angeles County government will prove itself -- or fail again -- in the coming years. It is experimenting with a new structure and is trying programs, such as Project 50 for homeless people, that break down bureaucratic barriers and focus on serving people. But the forces of the status quo are strong. The new supervisor -- Parks or Ridley-Thomas -- should be judged not by how fervently he supports Obama but by how tenaciously he will work to shake up the lumbering county behemoth. We will offer our view of the candidates in the next few days.