TWO L.A. MAYORS? YAROSLAVSKY PLAN WOULD CREATE TOP COUNTY EXECUTIVE.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

Seeking greater unity and accountability, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wants to let Los Angeles County voters elect a ``mayor'' to oversee the nation's biggest county.

The mayor would oversee the county's $21 billion budget and its 100,000 employees. The sheer scope of the post would make it the second most powerful in California behind only the one held by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

``The reason this is important is the people of the county are entitled to have one person they elect to hold accountable for the performance of the county,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``It's harder to hold five people accountable.

``Secondly, our 100,000 employees are entitled to know who their boss is. They have five bosses now -- five bosses with their five points of view, very often five different points of view on the same issue.

``It makes for a very difficult, if not confusing, situation for the people we've hired to run county government.''

As the political power structure exists now, experts say, the mayor of Los Angeles and the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District wield a great deal of authority. The Board of Supervisors, although quite powerful, receives little attention.

``The county, if they wanted attention paid to them, really needs a leader people can focus on,'' said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles.

``I would turn it around and say the county has too many leaders. In terms of the county, they are so diffuse that nobody looks to the county as they do the mayor and superintendent. Certainly, a chief executive always garners more attention, not only for himself, but also for his governmental entity. I think it would create much more interest in local government.''

But others question the political ramifications of consolidating the authority.

``That sounds like a pretty powerful office,'' said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.

``And it's not the first time a position would have been created so a politician could run for it. That office would be attractive for almost anybody in a term-limited office in this region.''

Yaroslavsky will be termed out in 2014, but said he would be ``perfectly happy'' never being county mayor.

Instead, Yaroslavsky said he's always believed that a county with 9.8 million residents -- more than all but eight states -- would be better served by an elected executive like a mayor or governor.

Yaroslavsky still needs to either persuade his fellow supervisors to place a proposed charter amendment before voters next year or qualify an initiative for the ballot.

But if he's successful -- and voters OK it -- Jeffe said a number of politicians might want to run for the seat, setting up a potential showdown with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa over whether L.A. is big enough for two mayors.

Supervisors already symbolically have moved toward a mayor position, voting a decade ago to change the official designation of the board chair position to ``mayor.'' Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has used the title of mayor when he's chairman, although other supervisors have not.

``(Antonovich) would never attract the kind of national and even international media attention that Villaraigosa attracts,'' Jeffe said. ``A large part of leadership is communication skills and the ability to use the media.

``And that's who will have the spotlight. Right now, the supervisors would prefer that nobody comes and reports on their meetings. They are the most powerful, least-known public officials in the nation.''

Yaroslavsky said the supervisors' failure years ago to address poor medical care at Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center has exposed the dysfunctional nature of the board.

Under his plan, the county mayor or executive would have the power to hire and fire department heads, propose budgets and veto board decisions -- just like a mayor, governor or president. The five supervisors could override a veto with at least four votes.

``The elected executive would be somebody like a governor or mayor who could respond to a disaster, or a problem at a hospital or the Probation Department, who could set the agenda for the county both politically and administratively,'' Yaroslavsky said. ``It's just common sense that a county this large should not be run by a committee of five.''

The proposal comes even as the city has quietly begun to consider whether to secede from the county and the county is under fire for a variety of issues including a potential federal takeover of the juvenile-justice system and long-standing problems in the jails.

But Antonovich's spokesman Tony Bell blasted the plan as a ``power grab'' that would increase the size of government and burden taxpayers.

``This is another budget-busting idea,'' Antonovich said. ``Bigger government doesn't result in better government. If it did, the city of Los Angeles would be the most effective government agency out of 88 cities in the county when in fact it's a joke.''

Representatives of Supervisors Gloria Molina and Don Knabe said the supervisors would have to review the proposal before saying whether they would support it.

Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who does not intend to run for re-election in 2008, said she supports the idea but is concerned it could grant too much power to one person.

``This is something that could be very good for the county of Los Angeles, but the devil is in the details,'' Burke said.

Efforts to create a county executive -- along with proposals to expand the Board of Supervisors from five to seven or nine members -- have been rejected by voters six times in the past, Antonovich said.

Voters rejected those proposals because they didn't like the idea of adding elected officials to government, thought it would cost too much or because the initiatives themselves were flawed, political analysts said.

But experts say the timing could be right, given the supervisors' recent failure to save MLK, which is being downsized to a community hospital after it couldn't pass federal inspections.

``I think it's a great example of what goes wrong when there is no central person to be held accountable,'' said Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at California State University, Fullerton.

``Everyone passes the buck at the county supervisors' level and it just got worse and worse until the federal government pulled the plug.''

Even county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen, who is retiring in January, recently criticized the ``event-driven nature of our system,'' saying county officials are consumed with addressing day-to-day problems.

``We are failing everywhere in many different ways,'' Janssen said.

Sonenshein said California is behind the East Coast, where a number of counties have elected executives. Of California's 58 counties, only the city-county of San Francisco has a mayor who also serves as an elected county executive.

``I think it's a great idea,'' said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. ``Maybe voters can be convinced this time a strong leader is needed.''

Redistricting expert Alan Clayton, director of equal opportunity employment for the county Chicano Employees Association, said Yaroslavsky's proposal could affect a case under consideration by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The association has alleged that the Board of Supervisors' 2001 redistricting plan discriminates against Latinos, noting that they comprise nearly 47 percent of the county's population but are represented by only one of the five supervisors.

Under the association's proposal, Yaroslavsky -- who now represents the Westside and western San Fernando Valley -- would be shifted to the San Gabriel Valley, potentially forcing him to run against another incumbent supervisor, or to run in the San Gabriel Valley against a Latino candidate.

``One incumbent or several incumbents might be vying for county mayor,'' Clayton said. ``That might make it easier to settle the case because no incumbent would have to be relocated to the San Gabriel Valley.''

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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