Los Angeles County Government Employees

One of Los Angeles County's highest-ranking black executives was awarded a $90,000 settlement Tuesday stemming from a discrimination complaint alleging he was victimized by racial discrimination and denied job benefits. The Board of Claims granted the payment to Edgar H. Hayes, director of the Data Processing Department, who filed a federal lawsuit last January seeking $1 million in damages from the county.

An elevator operator was crushed to death Friday at the Hall of Justice jail in downtown Los Angeles when she was caught between a descending car and a building floor. Doris T. Sims, 64, of Los Angeles, suffered head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene on the 10th floor of the county building where she worked a manually operated freight elevator for eight years, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said. Sims would have turned 65 in January, sheriff's officials said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has agreed to pay about $325,000 to a whistle-blower who was laid off and then reinstated with back pay after alleging that she was persecuted for exposing the agency's waste, fraud and abuse. Under terms of a secret settlement, Amelia Earnest, a buyer and contract administrator with a dozen years on the job, agreed to leave the MTA and to drop her lawsuit against the agency, said Assistant County Counsel Steven Carnevale.

In all the years that Brian Reynolds has worn the bright red swim trunks that mark him as a Los Angeles County lifeguard, he has developed the second sense to know which swimmers are most likely to get into trouble and has honed the skills to handle emergencies.

Los Angeles County officials have adopted changes in the county pension system that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year by boosting the retirement pay of hundreds of senior employees by at least 19%, according to records and interviews. The pension changes were implemented over the past several years with little public discussion and no study of their impact on the financially troubled county.

Metal detectors, panic buttons, a bevy of guards and interview booths divided by thick, shatterproof glass partitions--Los Angeles County's newest jail? No, a welfare office in the eastern San Fernando Valley community of Panorama City. And it is not the only one to have been converted into a veritable fortress.

The already troubled agency charged with caring for Los Angeles County's poor and abused children faces a severe budget crunch that could force as many as 190 short-term layoffs at a time when caseloads are likely to spiral upward, the agency's new chief said Tuesday. In his first public appearance since beginning the job three weeks ago, Peter Digre told the citizen panel that oversees the Department of Children's Services that he would press state and local officials to help make up a $9.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block predicted Wednesday that a federal grand jury soon will complete its investigation of alleged money skimming by sheriff's narcotics officers. "I believe 1990 will see this case dealt with and put behind us," said an optimistic Block in a year-end assessment of his department. "We would probably see their work completed sometime in February."

A social worker at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services is under investigation for allegedly making racist and sexist remarks about fellow employees in a telephone conversation that was accidentally recorded, officials said Friday. Charles Harris, 62, made offensive comments about Jews, gays and women during a March 25 phone call with a representative of a private counseling agency, according to a transcript of the conversation.

Two summers ago, 44 people came down with stomach flu-like symptoms and two were hospitalized after swimming in the parasite-contaminated pool of a San Fernando Valley private school. The pool at Woodcrest Elementary in Tarzana had not been inspected by county health officials for nearly three years--even though pool operators in Los Angeles County pay an annual fee of $104 for what are supposed to be yearly inspections.