Los Angeles County Government Officials

A few of the nation's top child welfare advocates call him "St. Peter," a tribute to the man who rode to the rescue in 1996, when Congress threatened to slash payments for abused and neglected children. Some of his own employees turn out a newsletter depicting Gerald Peter Digre, in contrast, as a horned devil. They say that he saddles social workers with too much work, too much blame and not enough power to help children and families.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Friday selected the top medical officer of the Veterans Health Administration to head the county's ailing Department of Health Services, concluding a nine-month search to fill what some see as one of the toughest health-care jobs in the nation. Dr. Thomas L. Garthwaite, undersecretary of health affairs for the VA, is set to begin his new job in February. He will make $275,000 a year and be the first medical doctor to run the county's $2.

Lancaster Mayor Henry Hearns acknowledged Wednesday he had referred loan business to a man charged this week in an Antelope Valley fraud case. One of Hearns' city commission appointees also was a business associate of Rayfield T. Johnson, 46, who was charged Tuesday with two counts of felony grand theft, court records show. Hearns, a Baptist minister, and his aide, city Parks Commission member Arvid Orbeck Jr.

As he completes his first year as Los Angeles County's district attorney, Steve Cooley may be finding some truth in the old political saw that running for an office is often easier than running an office. Last year, a confluence of events and historical factors helped Cooley, 54, skate to a landslide. He had the advantage of going against a wounded incumbent--Gil Garcetti--who, five years after the fact, was still tainted as the prosecutor whose office lost the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

After Pete Schabarum's farewell Monday, I walked down the long eighth-floor corridor of the County Hall of Administration to visit his most durable opponent, Supervisor Kenny Hahn. So, you outlasted him, I said. Although Hahn's speech has been slowed, and his body weakened, he's still the hall's fastest man with a quote. "Praise the Lord," replied the old supervisor. Praise the Lord.

Top Los Angeles County officials are chauffeured in government cars on personal trips--even to the barber, doctor or political dinners--and pay no taxes on the benefit. They can drive their bulletproof cars on out-of-town vacations, something top White House officials cannot do. And they can use their car phones for personal calls without reimbursing taxpayers.

With lowered expectations but a fierce will to remain one of Los Angeles' leading political forces, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner has begun to re-emerge after his stunning June defeat in the Democratic state attorney general race. In recent weeks, Reiner, whose loss dropped him from a serious mid-1990s contender for governor or U.S. senator to a potential political has-been, has gone public with a series of media-grabbing programs and political fence-mending measures.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana has emerged as the power behind the scenes in the redistricting plan submitted to a federal court Wednesday as a possible settlement of a lawsuit seeking to increase Latino political clout. Dana, sometimes working alone and sometimes with the county's political consultant, drafted the plan that provides political security for himself and three colleagues at the expense of his one-time mentor, Supervisor Pete Schabarum.

They are Los Angeles County government's official band of Satan hunters. The 4-year-old Los Angeles County Ritual Abuse Task Force is a group that believes fervently that widespread ritual satanic abuse, murder and conspiracy exists, reaching into every profession and all aspects of American culture--even police departments.

Members of Los Angeles County's legislative delegation and the Board of Supervisors agreed Friday to develop a joint strategy to keep open the county's financially strapped probation camps for young offenders. The county needs $60 million to save the 19 camps, which house youths convicted of a variety of crimes, mostly felonies. The camps are financed from the General Fund. Officials have said that without state help the camps will be closed by May 1.

After years of substandard performance, Los Angeles County's child support program was put in the hands of a new director, selected unanimously Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors after a nationwide search. The appointment of Philip Browning to the $155,000-a-year post closes one chapter in the long, troubled history of the county's child support program, the largest of its kind in the nation and long viewed as one of the worst.

Friday was Mark Finucane's last day of work as Los Angeles County health director. But it will not be his final day on the public payroll. A severance package approved by the Board of Supervisors allows him to work as a consultant for the county for the next year. He will continue to earn his $241,000 salary, receive full benefits and enjoy free county office space, his county-issued laptop, cellular phone and gasoline credit card.

Michael Gennaco, who prosecuted numerous high-profile federal civil rights cases, including that of white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr., will now oversee internal investigations of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the Board of Supervisors announced Friday. Gennaco, chief of the civil rights section of the U.S.

A Los Angeles County supervisor known for her support of organized labor is pressing to give a local parking company that failed to disclose past labor law violations a second chance at a county contract. Supervisor Gloria Molina has resisted awarding a modest parking contract to the firm that won the bid.

The commission weighing cityhood proposals for the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the Harbor area decided Wednesday to review its top executive's outside work for lobbyists and developers. The Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County "needs to decide whether to countenance" the flourishing private business of its executive officer, Larry J. Calemine, said County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the panel.

The government official in charge of drafting plans to break apart Los Angeles has collected tens of thousands of dollars in outside income from lobbyists and developers with business before the city, records show. The official, Larry J. Calemine, is paid $100,000 a year as executive officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, the autonomous agency weighing cityhood proposals for the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the harbor area.

In a rare move, the California Supreme Court on Monday unanimously overturned a Southern California man's murder conviction and death sentence after finding "outrageous and pervasive misconduct" by a longtime Los Angeles County prosecutor. The state high court, citing "gross misconduct" in the defendant's 1988 trial, also reported Deputy Dist. Atty. Rosalie Morton, 74 and still actively prosecuting cases, to the State Bar of California for possible discipline.

In broad daylight a gunman fired from close range at a stranded motorist, hitting him once in the back. The suspect, already with a violent criminal past, was later located in the alleged getaway car. A search of the automobile turned up a loaded semiautomatic pistol under the driver's seat.

It seems to happen every four years, a bizarre event rooted in our democracy's unique attributes and incomprehensible to the outside world. The presidential election? No, it is Supervisor Mike Antonovich's declaration that he is the mayor of Los Angeles County. It happened formally Tuesday, when Antonovich assumed the Board of Supervisors' ceremonial chairmanship. All county departments have been instructed to refer to Antonovich, not as chairman, but as "mayor" on all proposals and stationery.

When Steve Cooley is sworn in today as Los Angeles County's 36th district attorney, he will be in congenial surroundings: on a stage at Cal State L.A.'s Luckman Fine Arts Complex, where he once was honored as alumnus of the year and where his daughter once danced in "The Nutcracker." After that, he will enter a world both familiar and foreign.