New county supervisor to bring ambitious agenda

Mark Ridley-Thomas will become Los Angeles County’s newest supervisor Dec. 1, joining colleagues who stayed mum or actively opposed his campaign and owing more to a single special interest than any supervisor in recent memory.

Yet a resounding victory over Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and a reputation for shrewd consensus-building was expected to aid Ridley-Thomas in an ambitious agenda, including better compensation for county workers and a pledge to reopen Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital by January 2010.

Ridley-Thomas prevailed with 61% of the vote to Parks’ 39%. Parks, who was planning his father’s funeral Wednesday, made no public statements. His son and chief of staff, Bernard Parks Jr., said his father plans to serve the remaining three years of his council term and will run again in 2011.

Meanwhile, Ridley-Thomas awoke Wednesday to face myriad public policy challenges. That reality was reinforced at a morning news conference where he was greeted by Sheriff Lee Baca, leaders of the sheriff’s deputy unions, representatives of small businesses, environmental activists and Maria Elena Durazo, chief of the labor federation that spent $8.5 million to elect him.

The first item of business, he said, would be to build momentum for King’s reopening.

“There has been some trepidation on the board when it comes to setting timetables, but I don’t know how you get things done if you don’t have benchmarks,” Ridley-Thomas said.

The facility near Watts closed in August 2007 and much of its funding has been diverted to other programs. Ridley-Thomas said he hoped the debate over its fate could be reframed as one that also affects people in areas outside his district who might need the hospital in an emergency or whose local facilities could be overcrowded in King’s absence.

Those at the news conference appeared eager to cash in on their support for the new supervisor, seeking a slew of political favors. They asked Ridley-Thomas to work for raises for tens of thousands of county workers whose contracts expire in coming years and to help persuade the Sheriff’s Department to staff squad cars in Lynnwood with two officers rather than one.

“I called my city manager this morning and said we finally have a friend for Lynwood,” said city Mayor Pro Tem Aide Castro.

Ridley-Thomas also signaled that he might reopen some long-settled controversies in the county, where his four colleagues have worked without turnover for 12 years in what they call the “county family.” Although he is generally more liberal than the person he replaces, Yvonne B. Burke, he said he hoped to form alliances on law enforcement issues with the board’s two Republicans, Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe.

For instance, the supervisor-elect said it was likely that he would consider enhanced retirement benefits for public safety officers that would allow them to retire at age 50 with 3% of their salary for each year served. The plan was deemed too expensive by the current board.

Personal relationships were sure to come into play, however, and it was unclear how Ridley-Thomas would engage Antonovich and Gloria Molina, the supervisors who campaigned against him.

Antonovich released a statement saying that he looked forward to working with his new colleague and Molina said in an interview that she can “work with anyone.”

The relationship with Molina seemed especially frosty, however. She acknowledged that there “might be some personal animosity there,” and he said playfully, “We’ll see,” regarding how the two would get along. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who did not endorse a candidate in the race, said he was looking forward to working with Ridley-Thomas, whom he called inclusive.

Dermot Givens, a political consultant who has worked for Ridley-Thomas but was not involved in his latest campaign, said the new supervisor had no obvious allies on the board.

“People will be watching to see who is he going to make an alliance with, and is he going to let that alliance control him, or is he going to go in there as a leader and try to push his agenda,” Givens said.

Others said Ridley-Thomas’ ties to unions will make partnership with the board’s conservatives impossible.

“He won’t call it a mandate, but his supporters will -- to be a real champion for unions and working families,” said Jaime Regalado, who heads the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

“Labor very much sees Mark as their champion, and specifically county employees,” Regalado said. “They assume that they have somebody on the board now who will be in their corner.”

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garrett.therolf@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Times staff writer Evelyn Larrubia contributed to this report.