Los Angeles County Politics

Jeffrey Gascon of Lake View Terrace supports Valley VOTE's petition drive for a study and possible vote on the secession of the San Fernando Valley, but he's not too happy with one of the people hired to collect signatures. Gascon was leaving the Kmart on Foothill Boulevard in Tujunga on Wednesday when he noticed a table set up near the entrance touting a sign for Valley VOTE--and another petition to outlaw same-sex marriages. "Frankly, it was offensive," Gascon said.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, attempting to steal the thunder from advocates of the Los Angeles International Airport expansion, announced Friday that he will seek a ballot measure allowing county voters to weigh in on the future of regional air traffic. Antonovich, who represents the area around the Palmdale airport, has long pushed for that facility to grow exponentially and absorb the increase in air traffic anticipated for Southern California.

In a move that already has stirred controversy among local civil libertarians, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca confirmed Friday that he wants to name former California Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian as the first inspector general of the county's sprawling and deeply troubled jail system. According to the new sheriff, Arabian, currently a defense lawyer and a "rent-a-judge" in private practice in the San Fernando Valley, approached him and expressed an interest in the watchdog position.

In back rooms and boardrooms, a game of high-stakes political chicken is escalating between the county's five elected supervisors and a powerful coalition of Los Angeles-based state lawmakers over what kind of hospital should replace the gargantuan County-USC Medical Center.

The dogfight at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board over the future of its cursed regional subway system spilled over into the ballot box for the second time Monday, as three frequent opponents of County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky announced plans to try to kill his anti-subway initiative with a similarly worded--but vastly different--measure of their own.

The Catholic Church would consider opposing the San Fernando Valley's secession from Los Angeles if it represented an attempt by the middle class to shake off the urban poor, but otherwise is unlikely to take sides on the secular political issue, said the Encino priest ordained Wednesday as bishop of the Valley region. "We would take a position only if in some way it affected human dignity for the worse," said the Most Rev. Gerald Wilkerson.

With the ringing words of an ancient Hebrew prayer and the blare of a silver trumpet, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block was laid to rest Sunday, just two days before the election that he had hoped would herald his fifth term as sheriff of the nation's most populous county. "May his repose be peace," prayed Sheriff's Department chaplain Rabbi Henry E. Kraus, his voice bouncing out into the sun-drenched Hollywood Bowl, where Block's funeral service was held.

A year ago Wednesday--nearly a year to the day his friend Sherman Block would die--Mark Kroeker took off for Bosnia. He was given a blue beret and a uniform with an American flag on one sleeve and a United Nations insignia patch on the other. After 32 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he ranked as high as deputy chief, Kroeker was accustomed to being in charge of a large force of peace officers in a place where peace could be a difficult thing to keep. So when the U.N.