Voters express a low view of county

L.A. County voters are fuming.

- REBECCA ELLIS

AL SEIB For The Times POLL respondents said supervisors were effective only sometimesor not at all.

Two out of three think the county is headed in the wrong direction. Four out of five feel its leaders are closely connected to "big money interests, lobbyists, and developers," and the same fraction felt county supervisors were effective "only some of the time" - or not at all.

How to turn things around? Seven out of 10 agreed the county government needed "major reform." Those are the top-line findings from a new survey on local governance published last week by the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

The survey, paid for by the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, took the pulse of slightly more than 1,000 registered voters and found most feeling glum about the local state of affairs.

"Voters and residents are in a state of distrust and think that the government is not working," said Fernando Guerra, the center's director.

But the survey was meant to show more than just a dejected electorate, Guerra said. He argued it made another point: Now is not the time for opponents to try to undo Measure G, a controversial measure that overhauled the county's form of government.