Los Angeles County government is a lot like the Cook County political machine. A bastion of Democrat Party power, top officials run government like fiefs, and they wield power in the style of the big city party bosses of yore.
In an article today,
the Los Angeles Times reports that the Los Angeles County board of supervisors has sought to kneecap County Chief Executive William T. Fujioka. He is
CEO for the County, in charge of managing a $23 billion budget and over 100,000 employees. Apparently Fujioka, whose grandparents were sent to internment camps during World War II, is a hard-knuckled administrator, having honed his political skins navigating the rough and tumble of L.A.'s east side gang scene growing up. On the job as County CEO since 2007, Fujioka initiated an administrative reorganization that worked to take power from the hands of the elected board:
The county plan to centralize authority was the brainchild of Fujioka's highly respected predecessor, David Janssen. The new chief executive was to have increased responsibility over the department heads who guide the delivery of services for 10 million constituents, ranging from housing the skid row homeless to defending exclusive hillside neighborhoods from mudslides.
Fujioka was given more staff, and his office's budget climbed 53% to $43 million in four years. Eventually, Fujioka was to have received greater power to hire and fire most agency chiefs.
Under the new structure, supervisors were to have taken a back seat in day-to-day operations. The structure presumed the high level of respect and openness Fujioka's predecessor enjoyed. But most supervisors and their staffs have served for decades and developed expertise and deep interests in certain issues, and the transfer of trust did not come naturally.
No doubt.
It turns out that board members Michael Antonovich, Gloria Molina, and Zev Yaroslavsky moved "to strip the Children and Family Services and Probation departments from Fujioka's control." There's more to the story at
the link, including some ugly politics among members of the board, but this passage really caught my attention, and looks like an abuse of power:
While a majority of Fujioka's elected superiors may be critical, his subordinates praise him. County managers have complained about pointed attacks and contradictory direction from board offices in the past. "It's a very scary thing if you are a lowly department head," said Janice Fukai, the county's alternate public defender. "If you go in with the CEO, you feel a little more insulated and a little more protected."
Fujioka's backers say he has been particularly frustrated by some of the supervisors' interventions in the children's services agency, which has been grappling with child fatalities following errors in handling cases. It is one of the departments being taken away from Fujioka. Molina is especially hands-on, summoning top agency officials to her office to demand explanations. In one instance, she said she would like to cut the testicles off an executive because of problems in the agency, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
Molina declined to comment on the incident but said, "At the end of the day, we as supervisors are literally blamed and held accountable for the outcomes of these children."
Gloria Molina's homepage is
here. Clicking her page begins a photographic slide show of her service, beginning with a photo of Molina posing with President Barack Obama and ending with a shot of her posing with Former President Bill Clinton.
Her appearances with Democratic presidents form the bookends of a career in Los Angeles government spanning 20 years. In that time she's clearly developed an authoritarian style, which features crude and threatening accounts of her treatment of administrative subordinates. That Supervisor Molina refused to answer questions about the comment, as
the Times indicates, is not surprising:
Molina declined to comment on the incident but said, "At the end of the day, we as supervisors are literally blamed and held accountable for the outcomes of these children."
In a time of fiscal austerity, government officials at all levels have been coming under increased attention. But I think it's fair to say that it's especially inappropriate for an L.A. County Supervisor to announce she wants to "cut the testicles" off subordinate agency officials, and when asked about it to further denigrate them as "children."
Progressives would be all over this story if a Republican official has made comparable remarks. But this is the Los Angeles big city machine, and County elected officials obviously feel they can act with impunity.
UPDATE: From Russ,
in the comments:
I think when she says "children", she is referring to the children under the protective services that have died while under their authority, NOT the supervisors she threatened with castration.
I also got an e-mail from someone objecting to my comment on Molina's reference to "the children." I won't be surprised if some ASFLs contact my college to complain. Democrats and progressives are evil like that. So let's be clear: "The outcomes" may clearly refer to a purposeful act in the active sense, as in the actions of the administrators who have taken power from the hands of the board. Of course Molina might be referring to "the outcomes" of the children in the passive sense, but then again, considering she's threatening administrative subordinates, maybe not. She's a Democrat. They talk down to people like that. Progressives are losers.
Also, linked at
Instapundit, because, you know, no one pays attention to this blog, or something:
THREATS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE FROM A DEMOCRATIC OFFICEHOLDER IN LOS ANGELES ...I hope the Department Of Justice will investigate this egregious civil rights violation. For that matter, I suspect it’s a violation of California state civil rights law. Gloria Allred, call your office!
Word.
