Endorsement: No on Los Angeles County Measure G

It is one of the more obvious failings of Los Angeles County electoral politics that the Board of Supervisors, created by the California Legislature in 1852 to consist of five members, has the same number of members today.

Back then, there were something fewer than 8,000 Angelenos, according to a scattershot census performed at the time — half of whom were Native Americans, who were not allowed to vote. (Not that women were allowed to vote, either, but that’s another story,)

Today, L.A. is the biggest county by population in the nation, with 10 million residents — who are still represented by five supervisors. With 2 million constituents each, that’s a lot of distance between the people and their electeds.

So it’s simply common sense that the supes need to be expanded at some point soon.

What’s not at all common sense is the way a 3-2 board majority rushed an expansion proposal, Measure G, onto the November ballot.

Along with some other problems, it contains a monumentally horrible proposal simply no under-represented Angeleno has been clamoring for: It would make the county CEO position, currently an appointed, effective, no-drama bureaucrat responsible for budgets, HR and the like, an elected one.

In other words, a countywide “mayor,” above and beyond the supervisors, who would get into office by having to campaign for votes from the High Desert to the South Bay, from Pacific Palisades to Claremont, with 10 million constituents, second only in California to statewide officeholders in Sacramento.

Mitchell, a longtime progressive, is one of two members who voted against placing the measure on the ballot, along with the board’s only Republican, Kathryn Barger.

County voters should reject Measure G and tell the supes to come back with a well-considered, cost-neutral expansion plan that calls for no new elected boss for all of L.A.