What in the World Does the County Board of Supervisors Do?

by Tony Chavira

They have power over all city councils in Los Angeles County. They allocate money for every city in their jurisdiction and rule over unincorporated L.A. like fiefdoms. Who are these mysterious men and women of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors? Why do they have so much power? What do they even do at the county level that's important for us to know or care about in the first place?

To be deliberately vague, the answer is everything. In fact, it always seems strange that everyone is so focused on the city and state that they completely overlook the county (especially since the county jurisdiction technically supersedes any city jurisdiction, particularly regarding building regulations). The way I can tell that people don't care/know enough about the County Board of Supervisors is that the same people stay in their positions as board members for AGES: Don Knabe is the junior on the board with 11 years, Zev Yaroslavsky's second place with 13 years, Yvonne Burke has been on the board for 15 years, Gloria Molina was first elected in 1991 (18 years), and Michael Antonovich has been on the board since 1980 (27 years in the same position, people)!

"But Tony, that's just like the US Senate!" you say. I say, do you even know what the board of supervisors does? At least you're expected to know in elementary school what the U.S. Senate is supposed to do, and I'm sure that you could name both of the California Senators if you close your eyes and try really really hard.

Like most political positions, the County Board of Supervisors has a ton of responsibilities, but for our purposes I'm only going to focus on the topic of housing and development (the obvious favorite). For these responsibilities, we refer to the L.A. County Code, which the Board maintains and revises. Yes, the county has codes too. Places in L.A. County that are unincorporated without having a proper city to create more specific regulations all fall under the county jurisdiction. This way you can expect at least a standardized quality of community design, parks, streetscaping, and emergency procedures in case of something as awesome as a massive financial investment in development or as terrifying as a massive emergency evacuation.

up to spec?

More thorough than you might believe, the County Code expands profusely on huge factors from "Zones and Districts" and "Publicly-Owned Property" to the less glamorous side of planning, such as "Repair of Welded Steel Moment Framed Buildings Located in High Earthquake Damage Areas" and "Flagpoles." It's an insanely-detailed job, but who else is going to do it? So does this mean that the County Board members have the most boring legislative job of all time? Is that why it seems like no one wants to do it? Then why is Antonovich still on the board after 27 years?

The answer is control and money, although I guess that's general enough to apply to any political position. But this isn't just any normal kind of control. The control that the County Board of Supervisors has comes with the ability to grant money practically on a whim toward any development in their fiefdom. Here: read through a meeting agenda. There are several instances where developments are aided with th e County's money almost as a declaration: "They want money? Give it them!" To be clearer, if the Board members want to put together a park in their incorporated area and the board wants it tomorrow, it's done. In fact, if they see the city of Pomona or city of Lancaster or city of Inglewood have projects for affordable housing development that don't fall under their unincorporated jurisdiction, they can still give them supplemental money. They're the county. They can do whatever they hell they want.

A few years back, my mother was on the Montebello Unified School District Board of Education and heard about a project to put together a playground for a school that really needed it in unincorporated East L.A. area. My dad, being an architect, donated the designs and construction documents for landscape, but organizers were only able to pull together about 60% of the funds. Almost as if it weren't an issue, in swept Mrs. Gloria Molina and the playground went up before the fall session began.

Luckily for us, the members of the County Board of Supervisors have been nothing but generous with their budgets. Check out Yvonne Burke's press. Building new community centers, helping parents address STD awareness, organizing South Bay traffic signals, the "Adopt-A-Park" program: this laundry list of pro-community initiatives is the average amongst all of the board members. I mean, they've been given a budget to improve their districts and they tend to favor the unincorporated (since they need the most help in a lot of cases).

I'm writing this article as a bit of an early warning though. Yvonne Burke is finishing up this year and guys like Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas are already lined up and ready for the June 8 vote. So here's fair warning, especially if you're a homeowner who might at some point want to appeal a property assessment. Keep your eyes on the board members and people who want this position. They might one day save your community, just as long as you're sure to keep them honest. To bother them incessantly, head to their website: http://bos.co.la.ca.us/Main.htm.