Block, Union Sue County Over Cutbacks

Sheriff Sherman Block and Los Angeles County’s largest employee union filed lawsuits late Tuesday challenging proposed budget cuts and layoffs, only hours after a dozen demonstrators were arrested in a loud and angry sit-in at the offices of the county’s top administrator.

On a day in which the county’s financial outlook grew even bleaker, Block filed suit in Superior Court seeking an order to stop the Board of Supervisors from proceeding with cuts in the Sheriff’s Department that he said will endanger public safety.

And the Service Employees International Union, Local 660, went to court to challenge the expected layoffs of 10,000 county employees. The union, which represents about half of the county’s work force, alleged that county officials have initiated massive layoffs without negotiating with them first.

To show solidarity with more than 1,770 welfare workers given layoff notices a day earlier, more than 50 demonstrators carrying signs, blowing whistles and pounding drums made their way into Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed’s office on the seventh floor of the county Hall of Administration.

There they spent several hours calling for Reed to resign or be fired, dispensing hundreds of pink flyers bearing her likeness and the phrase “Pink Slip #1.”

A dozen of the protesters--all of them unionized county employees--forced their way into Reed’s private office reception area, sat in a circle holding hands and refused to leave until they were arrested by police and sheriff’s deputies without incident an hour or so later.

The demonstration came as county supervisors, meeting four floors below, received news that worsens their deep financial predicament: The state Supreme Court had refused to hear the county’s appeal of a court decision on general relief payments to welfare recipients.

The court’s decision will cost the county at least $72 million in additional welfare expenses, aggravating an already unprecedented $1.2-billion deficit in the county budget.

“It’s not getting any better,” Reed said later. “The magnitude is staying the same or growing. It is not improving.”

Reed said the situation is “every bit as ominous as it was a month ago” when she released a proposed budget containing sweeping cuts in county services, elimination of one out of five county jobs and closure of one of the nation’s biggest hospitals, County-USC Medical Center.

Tuesday also brought a series of other developments:

* After focusing their attention on lobbying Sacramento for help, Supervisors Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky left for Washington to seek federal assistance to avert severe cuts in health programs. They will meet today with members of California’s congressional delegation and with Clinton Administration officials at the White House.

* As one alternative to closing County-USC, the county Department of Health Services told the health crisis task force that Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar could be closed to save money. It is one option available in dealing with a deficit of at least $655 million in health services.

* Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, saying she did not have the votes, temporarily shelved a proposed plan to offer buyouts to some county workers instead of layoffs to shrink the county work force.

* County officials confirmed that notices of another 600 layoffs and 1,164 demotions will be going out later this week to Probation Department workers.

* County Fire Chief Michael Freeman announced that he will be forced to close 14 fire stations countywide if the supervisors do not approve an increase in fees paid by homeowners who live in areas served by county firefighters.

In an effort to avert cuts in his department, Block used private lawyers hired at taxpayer expense to sue the supervisors.

Block, the county’s top law enforcement official, said in an interview that he hand-delivered notification of his suit to all five supervisors. None responded, Block said.

The sheriff conceded that his suit is extraordinary, but said it was prompted by extraordinary circumstances surrounding the fiscal crisis. The supervisors last month ordered a 5% reduction in the sheriff’s budget, significantly less than the 20% cuts ordered for most other departments.

Block had threatened to sue for weeks, and said he did so only when it became clear the board could not assure him that his department would get the $22.9 million in tax money earmarked for law enforcement.

“They shouldn’t be angry,” Block said of the supervisors. “It is not an attack. I would call it a preemptive movement. It is my responsibility to push for public safety funds. That is what I was elected to do.”

Reed responded that county officials have handled the sheriff’s budget “completely properly.”

In the other suit, the Service Employees International Union contends that the supervisors illegally enacted up to 3,000 layoffs--and have proposed as many as 7,000 more--”without negotiating with the union over the impact of this decision. . . .

“Impacted employees will suffer immediate and irreparable harm in that they will immediately be denied their livelihood,” the suit said.

The union will seek an injunction today to stall the budget process.

Three other lawsuits have been filed against the county over the proposed cuts--an earlier one by the SEIU, one by another employee union and one by several taxpayers challenging the county’s borrowing from internal trust funds. The earlier suits by the unions were denied immediate injunctions to block enactment of cuts and layoffs. It was the morning protest, however, that drew the most attention as police and sheriff’s deputies, some in partial riot gear, swarmed into the headquarters of county government and marched through the hallways to Reed’s office.

By late morning, frightened employees on upper floors locked their doors and peered out at all the commotion. “At this point we have an emergency situation,” said one Los Angeles police sergeant, in closing down some corridors to the public and the news media.

As the dozen protesters sat in Reed’s office, several dozen more--nearly all of them county employees and SEIU members of--clamored down the hall outside a locked door.

Chants of “Let Sally go!” echoed down the hallways as Kimberly Tenney, 28, a newly laid off Downtown welfare office worker, huddled in a corner clutching a photograph of her baby son, DeVaughn. “I got my pink slip yesterday,” she said. “That [job] was my only source of income for me and my son.”

Amid the shouting, Local 660 General Manager Gil Cedillo exhorted the protesters to refuse to leave their jobs even if they are laid off. “We need to let Sally Reed know we will not let her disrupt the lives of decent, hard-working men and women.” he said. “She must go before we will go.”

Times staff writers Timothy Williams and Douglas P. Shuit and correspondent Mary Moore contributed to this story.