Advice for Mark Ridley-Thomas

Mark Ridley-Thomas took his oath Monday as the first new Los Angeles County supervisor in a dozen years, and today he joins the board at its first meeting of the new term. We offer him congratulations and best wishes. We also offer this advice:

Supervisor, you surely know that county government has its own culture, and that county workers have been trained to avoid trouble and to protect turf. What they truly would rather do -- most of them, anyway -- is provide effective service to people. Measure victory in how well you can help them to do it.

County culture promotes secrecy. Do not tolerate it. But also do not inadvertently sustain it by publicly exploiting every managerial or employee mistake for political gain.

Go ahead, be grateful to organized labor for its extraordinary role in electing you to the board, but don’t let gratitude overwhelm your good sense or reorder your priorities. Yes, there is overlap between the county workforce and lives of constituents, as you know from hearing the homeless county employee speak at one of your campaign meetings with labor. But you are here to serve millions of people and not just those on the county payroll.

County government takes pride in the Music Center, the Museum of Art, the Arboretum, the Hollywood Bowl, but those treasures need little help from the Board of Supervisors. You and your board colleagues are here to take on society’s most intractable problems, those shunted to county government by the feds, the state and voters: healthcare, welfare, mental health, homelessness, gangs, race relations, crime.

Be creative and courageous. Be willing to upend the organizational chart with boutique experiments like Project 50 to deal with homelessness, and when necessary, be willing to pull the plug and try something else. Acknowledge the failure of programs that were put in place to respond to second-class treatment of African Americans, such as the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Look at what Green Dot is doing with Locke High School, then take a hard look at what was once King/Drew and remember that the task at hand is to provide medical care for people in South Los Angeles rather than to preserve any symbol, legacy or institution.

Take this as a given: You will never have enough money to do everything you must do. You will never be without a crisis. Your job is nearly impossible. Take this as a given as well: Those will never suffice as excuses. Voters elected you to make things better, and they have every right to expect you to succeed.

Your task is difficult. Truly, we wish you the best of luck, for your sake and for all of us.