The tight race to fill the crucial swing vote on the County Board of Supervisors appears to be a straightforward showdown between a pro-business candidate and his pro-labor rival.

Indeed, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks has garnered much of the support of mainline business groups, including the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce and the Central City Association. His rival state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas is labor’s anointed candidate.

But it’s not quite so simple.

Ridley-Thomas, who last fall got the coveted endorsement from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, has won over to his camp billionaire developer Ed Roski, Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and newly installed Los Angeles Area Chamber chairman and local Verizon Communications executive Tim McCallion.

“This isn’t a simple business vs. labor fight,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a community activist and commentator who heads the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. “Parks has more old-guard support from business, but Ridley-Thomas has solid ties with business, too.”

And as the first competitive supervisor’s race in 12 years heats up, the stakes are particularly high for business. The five-member board has two conservative supervisors in Michael Antonovich and Don Knabe, with the other three members Burke, Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky taking positions from the center to the left. The retirement of Yvonne Braithwaite Burke means her replacement will serve as a swing vote.

If Parks were to win election to the board, he would provide that crucial third vote for generally pro-business and fiscally conservative policies. Ridley-Thomas, on the other hand, could provide critical swing votes in favor of labor on such issues as a likely push by building trades for expansion of project labor agreements on public works projects. The agreements mandate contractors hire workers through union labor halls.

The battle between these two African-Americans for this district which stretches from Koreatown on the north through South L.A. down to Carson and Compton on the south is expected to be extremely close, and costly.

Parks, the former police chief who was denied a second term as chief by former Mayor James Hahn, has the edge in name recognition, while Ridley-Thomas, who served on the City Council in the 1990s before moving on to the state Legislature, will be able to call on labor foot soldiers to get out the vote. The primary is in June.

Perhaps the biggest wild-card is the presence of eight other candidates, one of which community activist Morris Griffin could get just enough of the vote to throw the race into a November runoff election. One candidate must secure a majority in order to avoid the runoff.

Minimal fundraising

So far, not much fundraising activity has been reported, given that each campaign is likely to spend into the seven figures.

Ridley-Thomas has submitted a campaign finance statement showing that in 2007 he had raised $175,000, with much of that coming from small businesses, unions and politically connected individuals such as lobbyists and attorneys representing clients at City Hall.

Parks has filed his campaign finance statement showing he raised $271,000 in cash contributions in 2007, including $20,000 that he loaned his own campaign. Contributions came in from a broad cross-section of businesspeople, from apartment building owners to entertainment attorneys to car dealers. Among the prominent names: John Cushman, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the commercial real estate brokerage, billionaire Eli Broad and the Boeckmann family, which owns the Galpin Motors chain of car dealers.

Those contributions reflect Parks’ position as the voice of business and fiscal conservatism, two traits that he has demonstrated consistently during his five years on the City Council. He has opposed labor-backed initiatives to expand the living wage and more closely regulate the placement of big-box stores. He’s also opposed limits on condominium conversions.

“I’ve heard the frequent conversations about business feeling that there’s an uneven playing field and that businesses won’t come and expand in Los Angeles. That’s why I championed the creation of a business retention task force on the Council,” he said.

This philosophy gained him the support of key business groups, including the chamber and the Central City Association.

“While both (Parks and Ridley-Thomas) are intelligent and competent, at the end of the day, there was a sense from our members that Bernard looked at the economy and the issues more like the business community does,” said Carol Schatz, president and chief executive of the Central City Association.

Parks also has been more willing to go to the mat and defend businesses that are the target of regulations.

For example, last year, the Council was debating an ordinance that would have toughened the requirements for auto-related businesses to expand or renovate their facilities. The aim was to limit the noise and other negative impacts on nearby residents. But the ordinance didn’t sit well with new car dealers, who have come under market-driven consolidation pressures and foresee a need to expand their operations.

“When this ordinance came up, I went to Bernard and asked if he could get an exemption for new car dealers,” said Darryl Holter, chief executive of the Shammas Group of auto dealers on the Figueroa Corridor just south of Downtown L.A.

Parks got the exemption for new car dealers, but he is quick to point out that he doesn’t always side with business. “I’ve tried to be very fair to both sides. I’ve voted for employee raises and for project labor agreements on city contracts.”

Labor’s choice

Ridley-Thomas, on the other hand, is the clear choice of labor. When the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor endorsed Ridley-Thomas in December, Executive Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo cited his City Council record of supporting prevailing wage measures and his authoring of a city worker retention ordinance.

But he has also frequently sided with business. He has pushed hard for economic development in downtown and the South L.A. district, both on the Council and in the Legislature. In the mid-1990s, he championed the proposal to build the Staples Center sports arena, offsetting a very cautious approach from the councilwoman representing the area, Rita Walters, and outright opposition from former Councilman Joel Wachs, who threatened an initiative barring public monies for the arena.

Ridley-Thomas also has conducted an often quixotic quest to bring a professional football team back to the Los Angeles Coliseum, which is in his district, ever since the Raiders left in 1994. These efforts won Ridley-Thomas the support of Majestic Realty Corp. chairman Ed Roski and vice president John Semcken, who were leading the bid for a National Football League team.

“That’s where we really appreciated his talents as an astute negotiator working within the system,” Semcken said. “He helped get us all the way to the end of the line and if the city of L.A. had given us the same amount of money that Houston gave its franchise bid ($200 million), we would have had a football team here.”

Semcken said he sees Ridley-Thomas as a consensus builder, able to bring labor and business together on key projects like the Staples Center or the L.A. Live project now under construction.

Ridley-Thomas himself pointed to his efforts to reduce red tape for business in Sacramento as chair of the Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development. Small Business California, which advocates in Sacramento for small businesses, named Ridley-Thomas as its Legislator of the Year for 2007.

“Small business owners expect help, they want someone to advocate for them within the bowels of the bureaucracy to make sure that impediments are removed when appropriate,” Ridley-Thomas said.

But Ridley-Thomas also has been a consistent supporter of living wage legislation that’s been staunchly opposed by businesses over the years. And he cannot reflexively support business if he is to retain the support of organized labor.

“Look, if a Wal-Mart or another big box store wants to come into the Second District, Parks would basically support it, but Ridley-Thomas would raise hard questions about it,” Hutchinson said. “He would look at the impact on labor and then decide whether to vote for it.”