Bid to expand county boards shelved
Proposal sought to boost minority representation.
SACRAMENTO — A bill that would have let voters expand the boards of supervisors in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties has quietly died for the year after strong opposition emerged from Southern California leaders.
State Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) proposed the ballot measure to increase representation of minority residents in those counties, but the bill was opposed by some Democratic and Republican members of the Los Angeles County board who said it would create a more bloated and expensive bureaucracy.
“I did shelve that bill,” Mendoza said hours before Friday’s deadline for bills getting out of their house of origin. “For this year we are done with that one.”
Mendoza said he lacked the two-thirds vote needed for the bill, even though he believes that creating additional seats on the county boards would improve the opportunity for Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans to win more seats and therefore have better representation.
“I am disappointed because I think its so desperately needed, but sometimes you need to wait for the right moment,” Mendoza said.
In San Diego County, the board is made up of five white members even though the last U.S. census estimate indicated that Latinos, Asian Americans and African Americans make up nearly half of the county’s population.
Currently, the five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors includes one African American and one Latina. Orange County has three Asian Americans but no Latino or African American members.
“We desperately need more of a localized voice,” Mendoza said. “With too many people being represented by each supervisor, you get drowned out by the other folks.”
However, Mendoza’s proposal had drawn opposition from officials including L.A. County Supervisors Sheila Kuehl, a Democrat, and Michael D. Antonovich, a Republican.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Kuehl said. “Since Los Angeles County now has a progressive majority, it seems to me this is a thinly veiled attempt to neutralize that majority. It’s really political. It has nothing to do with representation.”
Kuehl said the board had increased field staffs and offices to better represent communities, which she said was “a much better way to serve people than to spend millions of dollars on two new offices.”
County voters have rejected measures to expand the board of supervisors six times, in 1922, 1926, 1962, 1976, 1992 and 2000, Antonovich noted.
“Bigger government does not mean better government,” he said. “If bigger government was the answer, then the city of Los Angeles, with its extra council members, would be the most efficient, responsive and costeffective municipality in the county.’’
He said the expansion would not add one more sheriff’s deputy, firefighter or librarian.
“Instead, it would drastically increase the county’s overhead costs, require the hiring of hundreds of staffers and force taxpayers to foot the bill,” Antonovich said.