COUNTY TRIED TO SIT ON PAY RAISE EFFORT BOARD ORDERED COUNSEL'S INACTION.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

In closed-door meetings in December, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the county counsel plotted to kill an initiative that seeks to raise the salaries of the county's lowly-paid 75,000 home-care workers, the Daily News learned Thursday.

During a closed session meeting Dec. 18, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Supervisors Gloria Molina, Don Knabe, Michael D. Antonovich and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke told County Counsel Lloyd Pellman they wanted him to refuse to sign the title and ballot summary of the initiative.

Until Pellman signed off on the measure, the health care workers union, Service Employees International Union, Local 434B, could not circulate the petition, a move that would make it almost impossible to qualify for the Nov. 5 ballot.

By law, when a group launches an initiative, it must submit the text to the registrar-recorder and the county counsel has 10 days to draft the language for the measure.

``He has no discretion,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``He must do it in 10 days. He suggested to refuse to do it and force the union to sue the county. The board majority went along with that over my strenuous objections. My objections were based on the fact he has no discretion. The county can't refuse to do what the law requires it to do.

``I fought very hard against this but the board went ahead and directed the county counsel Dec. 18 to do it anyway. That effort was led by Molina.''

Pellman could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

Molina's spokesman, Miguel Santana, said Molina was out of the country and he could not comment on the matter.

Home care workers have been gathering signatures to place the measure - which would raise their hourly wages from $6.75 to $11.50 - on the November ballot.

The workers, who help feed and bathe elderly and disabled people, are paid with federal, state and local funds.

Gov. Gray Davis already approved the raises a couple years ago, but his actions could not force the county supervisors to pitch in their share of the raises.

The workers have battled the county for years over the raises, and are apparently circulating the petition in an effort to get the supervisors to give them.

On Dec. 19, Pellman had second thoughts about refusing to certify the measure and called Yaroslavsky, the supervisor said.

``He was concerned the county would be sued on a civil rights action,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``He was really troubled by that and wanted to reverse the decision. I told him to call the rest of the board.

``That day, the 10-day deadline was up and he decided after talking to the board members that he was going to go ahead and sign off on the language. That should have been the end of it.''

Molina questioned Pellman's decision, noting that he contacted the board members by telephone without posting a notice of a meeting, a move that she claimed violated the state's open meeting law, a source said.

``Even if there was a violation of the Brown Act, the worst transgression was if the county had gone forward with a plan to deny the petitioners the right to go out and circulate the petition,'' Yaroslavsky said.

``It was unconscionable. It was a horrible thing to do. It's a violation of our oath of office. I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and this was a clear violation of those laws. At the end of the day it didn't happen because the county counsel had the courage to admit his mistake.''

Antonovich told City News Service on Thursday that he opposed the measure because it is an ``unconstitutional initiative that would take taxpayer funds for a vested-interested union.''