In November, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure G, which promised to transform county governance. The process that will implement its reforms begins now with the creation of the Governance Reform Task Force, and L.A. County leaders, residents and media need to be engaged because, as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.”
For too long, the county has underserved the people of Los Angeles. With nearly 10 million residents, our county is more populous than 40 U.S. states, yet it is governed by only five supervisors, each overseeing about 2 million people. The result has been reactionary leadership that maintains the status quo when the challenges we face require speed and innovation.
At its core, Measure G is about ensuring that the county can meet our greatest challenges. After all, the design of a government shapes the behaviors of those who govern us. The Board of Supervisors will be expanded, over time, to nine members from five. And an elected county executive will provide for the separation of executive and legislative powers, and a more accountable county government.
Take for example the devastating January fires. The Palisades and Eaton fires tore through the cities of Los Angeles, Malibu, Pasadena and Sierra Madre. The largest devastation in terms of deaths, homes lost and residents displaced was in the unincorporated neighborhood of Altadena. Instead of having one voice and one plan leading fire response and recovery at the county level, residents must navigate a maze of district by district bureaucracy to put the pieces of their life back together. Imagine if there was just one elected county executive guiding one regional strategy — this is the future we can create.
Now let’s consider homelessness — the most pressing issue facing the county year after year. Despite spending billions of dollars each year, the county has yet to move the needle far enough in addressing the issue. When an audit was mandated by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, the county learned of eye-popping inefficiencies and nepotism, leading it to pull its funding from the city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and leading to the resignation of the agency’s chief executive. Is this effective governance? Is this the best we can do?
In their recent book “Abundance,” Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson point to the need for proactive government in fostering innovation and breaking stagnation that places such as Los Angeles face. But ending the status quo won’t be easy. So many entities will resist change — agencies that have been allowed to underperform, vendors who overcharge, nonprofit organizations whose million-dollar contracts with the county may change — because an opaque county system is working for them.
Right now, the vision and continuity of the county change on an annual basis along with the rotating chair structure of the five-member board. Most actions get decided based on district preferences instead of the regional greater good. But as the founding fathers noted, government works best with checks and balances. The county supervisors, as the legislative branch, should have a healthy level of friction with an executive to keep them accountable to the people. Measure G’s addition of an elected county executive establishes those checks and balances. This change is critical to the leadership needed to tackle major crises such as homelessness and emergency response.
The new task force will also define the scope of a new independent ethics commission mandated by the measure.
Measure G is not just governance reform — it’s also democratic renewal. Los Angeles County’s form of government hasn’t changed since 1912, when our population was just 500,000 and women didn’t have the right to vote. To have world class transportation countywide, to transition to a green economy, to lessen disparities between rich and poor requires innovation.
As the task force begins the process to implement the voter-approved Measure G, we need the voices of all 88 cities and our hundreds of neighborhoods to help define the future of county government. Tune in for our livestreamed meetings, email your ideas to the task force and be sure to get involved as the task force develops and rolls out a community engagement strategy in the coming months.
We can’t afford to waste this opportunity. As a member of the task force, I welcome your participation in shaping the county we all deserve. This thrilling process starts Friday — join us.
Sara Sadhwani is a politics professor at Pomona College and was appointed by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, co-author of Measure G, to serve on the Governance Reform Task Force. measureg.lacounty.gov.
