Supervisors OK Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Plans

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday enthusiastically approved Sheriff Lee Baca’s plans for civilian attorneys and retired judges to oversee department internal investigations, making the county law enforcement agency the largest in the nation with that type of independent review system.

Supervisors, however, were unwilling to allocate the $1.07 million requested by the sheriff until September, when they said they will have a better handle on balances in the county budget.

Nonetheless, Baca and several supervisors emphasized that the Office of Independent Review eventually will get the money it needs.

“It’s a done deal,” Baca said after the meeting. “In my opinion, the train has left the station and there’s no going back.”

Baca said the Office of Independent Review is an extension of community policing that law enforcement agencies should not be afraid to undertake.

“I’m not resistant to the idea that the people are in charge of law enforcement,” Baca said. “If you’re going to do community policing, we might as well go the whole way.”

Supervisors commended Baca for bringing forward the proposal, saying the sheriff is taking a bold, unusual step.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the sheriff’s plan will make the department more accountable and could help reduce county payouts in legal settlements and judgments.

Also, Yaroslavsky said, the sheriff essentially is saying, “We have nothing to hide.”

Under Baca’s plan, the office will include six attorneys in charge of overseeing internal investigations involving misconduct as well as criminal allegations against sheriff’s deputies. The attorneys will have more access than the Los Angeles Police Department’s inspector general, Baca said, adding that they will have “total power and more freedom.”

Although supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina said they support the sheriff’s proposal in principle, they questioned how the six attorneys will be selected, and they asked for another meeting to iron out those details.

Merrick J. Bobb, who monitors the Sheriff’s Department for the supervisors, has urged that the process be left completely independent of the Sheriff’s Department, a notion seconded at the meeting by some civil rights lawyers who have reviewed drafts of the proposal.

That insistence could put those reform advocates at odds with the sheriff.

Although Baca told supervisors that neither he nor his department would be involved in the hiring, the sheriff told reporters after the meeting that he would join with the supervisors to have the final say over the chief attorney’s position.

But attorneys Kathay Feng, the program director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, and Erica Teasley, the western regional counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Baca’s comment heightened their concerns about the independence of the office.

“I was surprised to hear that,” Teasley said. “He shouldn’t be at the table at all.”

Supervisors said they want to refine the details of the plan in the coming weeks.

Later Wednesday, the board approved a $15.3-billion budget for the county, a slight decrease from last year.

The budget includes a federal waiver from Medicaid rules that had stalled budget talks and threatened to close county clinics providing medical care to the county’s poor. The waiver allows the county to receive reimbursements from the federal government for providing medical care at outpatient clinics.

Several supervisors said that the five-year extension from the federal rules was necessary to keep the health department afloat but that this year’s near-breakdown of that system should be a loud warning that restructuring must begin immediately.

“I don’t think we want this to be repeated,” Molina said. “We need an orderly plan. It isn’t just a matter of money . . . it’s what is going on with the clinics, what is going on with health care.”