A plan to reshape the Los Angeles County government inched closer to the November ballot Tuesday, despite the concerns of a minority of supervisors that the review was rushed and arbitrary.
In an unusual meeting, supervisors voted 3 to 0 to direct the county attorney to draft an amendment to the county charter that would nearly double the size of the five-member Board of Supervisors and create an elected position for day-to-day oversight. operation.
Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell, who criticized parts of the plan throughout the meeting, abstained from the vote.
Supervisor Hilda Solis voted a decisive yes, joining the plan’s authors, Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, to move forward. Horvath and Hahn said their goal is to make the governing structure — fundamentally unchanged in more than a century — more responsive to the county’s 10 million residents.
Each of the five supervisors oversees a district of approximately 2 million people. In 1912, when voters first adopted charters, the ratio was supervisors for every 50,000 people.
“I’ve always been of the opinion that we should have more representation,” Solis said.
Under the proposed charter amendment, the number of supervisors would increase to nine. The county’s chief executive, who oversees the budget and manages day-to-day operations, will be elected by voters rather than appointed by the board. And the district will create an independent ethics commission to investigate corruption.
The amendment must return to the council a second time for a vote before appearing on the November ballot.
Barger and Mitchell submitted a series of pointed questions to their colleagues and two experts.
Why nine supervisors and not seven or 15?
Is it possible to study to determine the correct number?
Is having an elected executive partisan?
What is needed to finance these improvements?
“I have a question,” Mitchell said. “I just think it’s too risky for us to take a bite of an imperfect apple.”
Barger brushed aside some of the harshest criticisms, saying he felt the county’s supervisors were not structurally flawed, but with some uncertainty. He pointed to the long delay in closing the Men’s Central Jail, a dilapidated facility that the superintendent voted to close last year. The problem there, he said at the meeting, is that supervisors “don’t have the will to make the tough decisions” about what needs to change.
Barger and Mitchell also criticized the process of formulating the ballot measure, which was made public last week with a press conference. Barger said he felt his teammates didn’t include Mitchell, who had made two plans early last year — one. successone not – to improve the district government structure.
“This process is not transparent as it relates to the way it was launched,” Barger said.
It was an incredibly contentious meeting of supervisors who, at least in general, were happy to agree – or disagree in the mildest of terms.
“You’re really mad about it,” Hahn said, noting that he and Barger usually get along. “I feel it.”
Horvath and the experts he and Hahn invited sought to allay some concerns, saying the proposal, while not a panacea, could make the government more responsive.
Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for Los Angeles Studies at Loyola Marymount University, told supervisors he had never heard of a jurisdiction with 10 million people without an elected executive.
“It may not be perfect, and it may not meet the needs of all five members, but I maintain that it is the right thing to do,” Horvath told his colleagues.
Under the plan, the nine-supervisor structure would not begin until 2032, after the redistricting process, which could give some new political races and ethnicities, especially those in unincorporated parts of the district.
Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani, who serves on the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, noted in the post that Rowland Heights and Hacienda Heights have large Asian American populations, while East Los Angeles has a significant Latino community, which could form a powerful voting block depending on from how the line is drawn.
There is no Asian American county supervisor, and Solis is the only Latina on the all-female board, in a county that is nearly 50% Latino.
“This district is so big that we have an incredible dilution of different communities of color,” Sadhwani said.
Horvath’s office said the plan for two final votes on the language of the charter amendment took place July 23 and August 6.
A final council vote must take place beforehand August 9 for the amendment to make the November ballot.
