EDITORIAL CEDING RESPONSIBILITY COUNTY MAYOR IDEA DOESN'T SOLVE PROBLEM WITH GOVERNANCE.

BACK in the old days, the five Los Angeles County supervisors each took over unofficial responsibility of individual departments.

But eventually the supervisors realized that with responsibility came accountability, and thus evolved a governance system that is so dysfunctional that it allowed fiascoes such as the King-Drew Medical Center crisis to occur and a juvenile justice system to get so broken a federal court may step in to run it.

Oddly, at least one person sees the bad management as reason to add another politician who can fail to fix the problems. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky earlier this month resurrected an old idea of creating a county mayor. Yaroslavsky says he might push a ballot measure in 2007 asking voters to endorse the new job.

It's an interesting idea, but the supervisors will need to answer an obvious question before voters will support it: What will they do if there's one person in charge?

The only immediately apparent benefit from this proposal would be that Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich would finally have to stop calling himself ``Los Angeles County Mayor,'' a title without a meaning. Certainly the county needs leaders who take responsibility for the problems that plague the county's health and welfare departments, jails and hospitals. But that is supposed to be the job of the five supervisors.

Otherwise, what did we elect them for? Certainly not to be the rubber stamps of some supreme county mayor, who is likely to be none other than one of the currently sitting supervisors.

If they can't take responsibility for the government they oversee, they should step down and let other people have a chance.

Thankfully, the idea appears to lack political traction with the rest of the board.

Other local politicians see the county's problems as evidence that the county government should be smaller. Some Los Angeles city officials have already started eyeing a breakup with the county to form a city-only county, a plan initiated by Councilwoman Jan Perry. If the county's supes continue to shirk their duties, this could become a real threat.

As such, this is the wrong time for Yaroslavsky and his colleagues to cede their responsibilities. They must take charge of the county government they were elected to run.