An elected or appointed chief executive for Los Angeles County? Voters will decide

Of the many facets of November’s ballot measure aimed at reorganizing the structure of Los Angeles County government, the one involving the chief executive is hardly the most conspicuous.

It has become one of the most controversial, however, dividing unions and county politicians even more than the proposal to expand the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members.

Proponents of the idea say that appointing the chief executive rather than appointing him would make him more accountable in one of the county’s most important positions, since voters would choose, and could even remove, him. Opponents warn that it would simply make the largest county in the United States an outlier.

“The newly elected chief executive is an experiment at best,” said Richard Pippin, head of the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs Association, one of several county employee unions claiming that an elected chief executive would politicize the position and fuel “internal political games.”

But that’s already the case with the appointed CEO, said Fernando Guerra, director of the Los Angeles Studies Center at Loyola Marymount University, who supports the measure.

“This is one of the most political positions in the state of California,” Guerra said, noting that the current superintendent can be removed by a majority vote of county supervisors. “Anyone who says this is not a political position doesn’t understand politics.”

The five supervisors appointed Fesia Davenporta longtime county employee, as executive director in 2021. She oversees the county’s day-to-day operations and develops its $45 billion budget.

Simply put, the supervisors set the vision for the county and Davenport is responsible for implementing it. She can be fired by the supervisors, but cannot be recalled by voters.

The November referendum will ask voters whether they want to radically reshape how Los Angeles County is governed. In addition to expanding the board and making the county manager an elected position, the referendum, led by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, would create a new ethics commission.

“It’s clear from the conversations I’ve had … that the most concerning element of the proposed ordinance is the elected county executive,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a board meeting last month before she and Supervisor Holly Mitchell were outvoted 3-2 by their colleagues, putting the measure on the ballot.

Under the measure, the elected executive committee would have the power to veto board policies and would have complete authority over department heads. Currently, supervisors have final say over departments.

That would create a system of checks and balances with which most voters should be familiar, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Haynes Foundation, which funds research on governance in greater Los Angeles.

The supervisors would be the legislative branch. And the CEO — like the president of the United States — would lead the executive branch. Right now, Sonenshein said, the supervisors do everything.

“There is a general consensus that the executive branch is a separate branch,” he said. “You would never imagine that Congress could run departments.”

Horvath’s motion to draft the referendum measure named several counties with elected officials, including Cook County, Illinois (population 5.2 million); Montgomery County, Maryland (population 1 million); and Cuyahoga County, Ohio (population 1.2 million).

But for most large counties, an appointed executive is the norm, said Jason Grant, advocacy director for the International City/County Management Assn.

The association, which often works with local governments considering structural change, wrote to the Board of Supervisors in July, arguing that an elected executive was a bad idea. The letter cited a study that found there was less corruption in a “council-manager” form of government with an appointed executive, similar to the county’s current one.

According to Grant, an elected executive could be influenced by donors and political allies.

Los Angeles County public employee unions that oppose an elected chief executive say the system would fuel dysfunction.

AFSCME Local 685, which represents probation officers, wants to see “a career professional, not a politician” running the county. Dave Gillotte, president of Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014, urged the board to “remove” the provision for an elected chief executive.

But the county’s largest union, representing 55,000 employees, is willing to give him a chance.

David Green, The president of International Service Employees Local 721 said his union tends to support the CEO-elect, partly because of frustrations during recent contract negotiations.

Green said he can easily reach all five county supervisors. But the person who holds most of the power in negotiations — the CEO — remains behind the scenes.

“We could do better, frankly,” Green said. “Can an elected CEO fix this? I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball.”

Times reporter David Zahniser contributed to this report.