> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.losangelesrules.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "Point of entry" - URL: https://www.losangelesrules.com/point-of-entry/ - Published: 2026-08-29T05:58:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-08T03:47:59.000Z - Description: Aug. 7: The Los Angeles County Governance Reform Task Force discusses the elected executive and constituent services - Author: Robert Greene - Tags: Cities, County executive, Governance, Governance Reform Task Force, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Measure G, Measure J, #homepage1 With a self-imposed Sept. 9 deadline looming, Los Angeles County’s reform strategists marched through six grueling August sessions to hammer out details left blank by Measure G, the historic 2024 county governance overhaul. A seventh meeting was cancelled. The late-summer marathon brought the task force close to final recommendations on several Measure G requirements, including the shape of a new independent Director of Budget and Management, a new Office of Chief Legislative Analyst. Final decisions are up to the Board of Supervisors. Task force members also finalized new rules for Board of Supervisors agendas to better notify the public about proposed county programs and ordinances. Measure G requires those reforms to be in place by the end of the year. But the main event is the office of county executive, what powers that office will have, and how the responsibility for constituent services is to be divvied up between the executive and a larger but less powerful Board of Supervisors. At the Aug. 7 meeting, held at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, at least one member appeared taken aback by a recommendation that the new directly elected county executive have the sole authority to speak for the county in negotiations with state and federal governments. That contemplates, Governance Reform Task Force member Derek Hsieh, a wholesale transfer of power to the executive from the Board of Supervisors that is not inherent or mandatory in Measure G. 0:00 /0:37 1× Governance Reform Task Force member Derek Hsieh cautions that a wholesale transfer to power from the Board of Supervisors to county executive may not have been contemplated by voters. Most of the other members appeared to take that power transfer in stride, though, as the expected result of a reframed charter that creates an executive branch, checked and balanced by the Board of Supervisors as the legislative and oversight branch. There are lingering questions as to how well a federal or state-style system of government branches with checks and balances transfers to local government, where providing constituent services is paramount. In the City of Los Angeles, for example, the mayor is ostensibly in charge of most government services. She can hire, fire and issue directives to department heads, who report to her and theoretically make up her cabinet. But when residents want to report an abandoned car in front of their house or a street tree with dangerous unsturdy limbs, do they call the mayor’s office? The mayor is the elected official furthest removed from the particular problem and the neighborhood where it came up. The councilmember is much closer and, arguably, likely to be much more responsive. But that means the councilmember has to have enough savvy and clout to get some action from the city Department of Transportation or the Bureau of Street Services, whose leaders are accountable to the mayor, not the council. When councilmembers do that kind of thing, of course, they are not acting as legislators. They are acting as mini-executives. The pristine simplicity of the organizational charter does not describe reality. Sometimes the system appears to work. Sometimes it doesn’t. Task Force recommendations to be considered on Sept. 9 appear to contemplate a Los Angeles city-style division of powers for the county, with lawmakers remaining mini-executives who remain responsible for delivering constituent services, even though under the new model they will have lost any official clout to order department directors to do anything. The county executive and the supervisors will work cooperatively to serve constituents. The proposal seems a little – wish-based. Task Force member Marcel Rodarte noted that delivering services is what gets elected officials re-elected, so the executive and supervisors will all do their best. But that doesn’t mean they will collaborate. If the executive and the supervisors each staff up with constituent service workers, wouldn't that be wasteful? Shouldn’t there be a single shop where all service requests go and get distributed to the proper place? How do we find recommendations that are complementary and not duplicative, he asked. Measure G promised no new taxpayer costs, and if it is to be successful, it should also avoid adding additional layers of bureaucracy between residents and their leaders. There’s another issue. 0:00 /1:18 1× Task Force member Derek Steele asks what the new "point of entry" will be for community members who currently acees the county bureaucracy through their elected supervisor. In the last decade, some constituent groups that have historically been marginalized and have felt shut out of county government have organized and worked to win a seat at the county decision-making table. Measure J, the 2020 charter reform that sets a funding floor for alternatives to incarceration and requires an equity lens on many county programs, is one prominent example. Task Force member Derek Steele noted that the “point of entry” to the county political and policymaking system has been, up to now, the supervisors. Now their clout is being reduced, and a powerful county executive is coming. What will be the new “point of entry”? 0:00 /1:18 1× Chair ProTem Sara Sadhwani notes that people already don't know who to call for services. The conversation kept returning to constituent services. And appropriately so, because it may be the Task Force’s toughest nut to crack. In unincorporated county areas – places where there is no city government – the county provides city-type services like removing abandoned cars and trimming dangerous trees, along with public safety, fire protection, sanitation and all the rest. But county constituent services also include protecting children from potentially dangerous foster homes; finding out what’s holding up a general relief check; providing free programs at the Music Center; shutting down an unsafe restaurant; informing non-citizen residents whether they might suddenly be considered a “public charge” under new federal rules; providing emergency mental health care; keeping a loved one safe while in jail; serving a restraining order; and hundreds of other cases in which a constituent in a stressful situation needs immediate information and advocacy to deal with a serious and previously unforeseen problem. Supervisors currently can intervene with most department heads, because the supervisors are their bosses. And for the elected executives the county already has – like the sheriff – a supervisor may help a constituent get answers. “I think we say it, ‘constituent services,’ and I’m envisioning someone somewhere at a desk,” Task Force member Sara Sadhwani said. “But what is that exactly?” “Perhaps we need to drill down a little bit more to be thinking about what kind, and how much, and what makes the most sense,” Sadhwani said. These are good questions. In advance of the Sept. 9 meeting, the Task Force has yet to clarify the answers. Next: Aug. 12, and the “Friday afternoon massacre” --- **Source: Governance Reform Task Force August 7, 2026 Special Meeting -** [Full meeting video](https://lacountyboardofsupervisors.webex.com/webappng/sites/lacountyboardofsupervisors/recording/b94a123db9314a878aca1b4a14d22cb3/playback?ref=losangelesrules.com) \-- [Derek Hsieh](https://measureg.lacounty.gov/derek-hsieh?ref=losangelesrules.com): 1:21:10 - 1:21:40 \-- [Sara Sadhwani](https://measureg.lacounty.gov/sara-sadhwani?ref=losangelesrules.com): 1:24:05 - 1:24:24 \-- [Derek Steele](https://measureg.lacounty.gov/derek-steele?ref=losangelesrules.com): 1:29:50 - 1:30:22