Supervisor Gloria Molina

Re "Supervisors Vote to Hike Own Benefits," Jan. 15: What's with our county supervisors? Are they so destitute with their almost $100,000 salary and $16,000 in perks that they need an additional $3,000? Come on, taxpayers! Let's unite and "throw the rascals out." Thank God for Supervisor Gloria Molina, who is making the public aware of these "obscene" perks. I wholeheartedly agree with Molina: Our chief administrative officer, Richard B. Dixon, should be fired immediately.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has a chance to do some much needed repair to its growing reputation for arrogance and unresponsiveness. The L.A. County Grand Jury has added its voice to others, calling the county's costly added pension perks "the height of fiscal irresponsibility." Changes in the pension rules that allow fringe benefits to be counted with salaries in calculating retirement pay will cost taxpayers a whopping $265 million over three decades.

American Civil Liberties Union officials Thursday questioned anew last week's approval by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors of oversight of the Sheriff's Department by a panel of retired judges. The ACLU contended that even if expanded, the group of judges would not be representative of the county's population.

Victor Valle and Rudy Torres offered interesting conjecture on how new Supervisor Gloria Molina might build a following for what they labeled her populist approach to government (Opinion, June 23). However, their conjecture is built at least in part on erroneous assumptions. The authors claim that former Supervisor Pete Schabarum distributed $213,000 to my reelection campaign in 1984 and that he contributed another $100,000 to my "come from behind" 1986 campaign. That is not true.

With local agencies already touting projects that are underway, Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday criticized the county's effort to get stimulus money as too slow and bureaucratic and said their lobbyists in Washington were providing too little information on when those funds would be available locally. "As of today, maybe even tomorrow, we don't know if that money's going to flow direct so that we have access to it . . . or if it will flow through the state and they'll take a huge chunk of it," said Supervisor Don Knabe, who announced earlier this month that he hoped to use federal money to fund 10,000 temporary jobs but now said he was unsure the deal will come together as planned.

Is Zev Yaroslavsky the only county supervisor with an ounce of integrity ("Board Secretly Urged Killing Ballot Item," March 8)? Who elected these people and who has oversight of them? Taking money away from home-care workers is the lowest of the low, and to think these supervisors didn't even have the guts to fight fairly--they had to try to squelch the ballot measure secretly, not wanting the issue to go to the voters. Who do they think they are and where do they think they live? The last time I looked I still lived in a democratic country.

Low ratings and high production costs are hardly music to any producer's ears. But those sour notes were sounded Tuesday as the Board of Supervisors considered spending up to $500,000 a year to televise its meetings, despite estimates of low public interest. Supervisor Gloria Molina proposed the cable TV broadcast, noting that Congress, the state Legislature and the Los Angeles City Council already televise their hearings.

Re county Supervisor Gloria Molina's illegal retaining wall and swimming pool, April 17: As much as we may want to believe that Molina and her husband will be required to pull permits for the swimming pool or bring the retaining wall up to code, we all know this will die on the vine. The $3,000-plus in fees and fines associated with the wall went unpaid and so will this. Los Angeles operates under two systems--one for the common citizen and another for the Gloria Molinas. If you don't believe this is so, why wasn't the previous retaining wall fine collected?

Filling a job that has been vacant for three years, Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday narrowly approved the hiring of an attorney to investigate the cases of children who die while in the county's care. To take the post, Rosemarie Belda will leave the Office of County Counsel, where she has represented the Department of Children and Family Services, the agency that will now be a central target of her reports. In addition to investigating child deaths, she has been asked to recommend reforms that might prevent future fatalities.