Crossroad at Los Angeles County

At the Southern California Sober Living Coalition meeting last night, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas' office sent a senior staff to advocate for the Supervisor's plan to reopen the MLK Hospital in partnership with the University of California. See the County CEO's latest report to the County.

Before he got the opportunity to advocate for his agenda, we spent about half an hour explaining to Coalition members the significance of the recent County move to expand their employment screening to include an FBI check, even showing a clip of some of us testifying at the Board meeting last week.

Afterward, the senior staff member and I had a little heart-to-heart that ended up confirming my lingering fear, i.e. that Supervisor Ridley-Thomas will not champion our cause at the Board. The senior staff member had sound political reasons for not taking up our cause, and I understand that Supervisor Ridley-Thomas doesn't want to sacrifice his other causes for the sake of this one. Still, it hurt.

So where do we go from here? Litigation against the County to bring its policy in compliance with Title VII? Coalition building with MALDEF, APALC, EJS, ACLU, and LAFLA? Or take to the street in protest?