When Mark Ridley-Thomas won his seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in November with more than $8 million in backing from organized labor, many business executives and leaders were worried.
However, Ridley-Thomas told the Business Journal he has no intention of being a rubber stamp for labor.
“There have been times when I have not gone with the unions,” he said.
Ridley-Thomas said he wants to make the permitting process easier and is particularly interested in helping so-called green businesses thrive.
Still, skeptics cite his pro-labor track record as a legislator in Sacramento, and fear he will reflexively side with the unions in any high-stakes dispute. Business interests generally backed Ridley-Thomas’ rival in the campaign, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks.
Ridley-Thomas’ election was crucial because it is seen as tipping the five-member Board of Supervisors toward labor interests.
“After the enormous monetary support organized labor gave Mark Ridley-Thomas in the primary and run-off elections, most observers expect that he will vote to give the public employee unions nearly everything they demand in the future,” said David Fleming, an attorney at Latham & Watkins LLP and former chairman of both the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles County Business Federation. “Some union leaders have told me privately that they bought and paid for Mark’s seat and now expect to own it for the next 12 years.”
But others adopted a tone of cautious optimism after the new supervisor reached into the ranks of business for some key appointments. They hope it’s a sign that Ridley-Thomas will be more willing to listen to their concerns as the board considers key issues, such as living wage and public-private partnerships.
“He is surrounding himself with people who are very experienced in the fields they will be responsible for, including business,” said Gary Toebben, president of the L.A. chamber. “This is a very encouraging sign.”
Ridley-Thomas has yet to be confronted with an issue pitting business against labor interests. But those battles are expected in the next several months on many fronts. One of those could be expanding the county’s living-wage ordinance; Ridley-Thomas has been clear that he generally supports living-wage proposals.
Unions also will almost certainly bring forward project labor agreements for major infrastructure projects, which generally require contractors to hire workers through union hiring halls in exchange for labor peace. The agreements put nonunion contractors at a disadvantage.
Also, battles can be expected over contracting with the private sector, especially for the reopening of long-troubled Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center. The Willowbrook facility is in his district, which stretches from Koreatown to Carson and Compton. Ridley-Thomas has made reopening King-Drew a priority.
He also turned to the business world for his point person on that case, Yolanda Vera, who recently served as health care adviser for the L.A. chamber.
Business-friendly
Ridley-Thomas says he is listening to the concerns of business, especially in regards to the complexities of permit procedures. In the interview, Ridley-Thomas spoke of his desire to make the county more business-friendly, especially for small businesses in unincorporated areas.
“One of my first goals is to ease the permitting process, so that you as a businessperson don’t have to go to so many different agencies to get a permit,” Ridley-Thomas said. “It’s all about making the county more efficient.”
Toward that goal, he would like to adapt the city of Los Angeles’ recently initiated 12-to-2 program, where businesspeople seeking development permits that used to have to go to up to 12 different city departments now may only have to deal with two agencies.
Ridley-Thomas also made a plea for green businesses to set up shop in his district.
“I’m calling all entrepreneurs for green technologies,” he said. “We want you here and we will try to make it easier for you to be here.”
Ridley-Thomas also he said he would push for more major development projects in his district, which covers economically disadvantaged parts of South Los Angeles.
He has asked Cynthia McClain Hill to serve as an adviser on small business issues. McClain Hill is a local attorney who serves as president of the national body of the National Association of Women Business Owners and is a past president of Nawbo’s L.A. chapter; she has been consulting on the Ridley-Thomas transition team. It hasn’t been decided if she’ll continue.
He also hired Dan Rosenfeld as planning deputy. Rosenfeld, who will lead the efforts to bring business and economic development projects to the district, was formerly a principal in the downtown development company Urban Partners Inc.
These appointments have given some comfort to business leaders who had endorsed Parks as the more business-friendly supervisorial candidate.
“We’ve heard from Dan Rosenfeld. He does have a balanced point of view and has indicated he wants to work together with us,” said Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Association. The downtown business organization, like several across the county, endorsed Parks in the November election.
Schatz said that the CCA worked with Ridley-Thomas when he was on the Los Angeles City Council in the 1990s, and he was helpful in pushing the Staples Center project forward. The developers reached a project labor agreement with the building trade unions that was key to winning council approval.
As a result of his work on the Staples development, Ridley-Thomas won some lifetime business supporters, particularly Ed Roski, chairman and chief executive of Majestic Realty Co., part of the team that developed the sports and entertainment venue. Fran Inman, vice president for corporate development at Majestic, is another ally and now serves as the 2009 chairwoman of the L.A. chamber.
Of course, union-friendly political figures often ally with big developers, who are likely to hire union workers for big projects.
Skeptics persist
Some other business leaders have a more skeptical view of Ridley-Thomas’ willingness to go against unions, whether in contract negotiations with the county or when the private sector is involved.
“The true test will be how he votes and engages on labor negotiations both at the county level and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority,” said Fleming of Latham Watkins.
Some in the business community are not optimistic.
“You don’t take that kind of money from unions without almost unbreakable strings attached,” said one local business executive who has long dealt with local labor unions as part of his business and asked to remain anonymous.
One political observer said that relations between unions and their political allies work both ways.
“A lot of people say that Mark Ridley-Thomas has to be responsive to unions. But the unions also have to be responsive to him,” said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. “It’s extremely hard to dislodge an incumbent supervisor, so the unions must deal with him no matter what position he takes. That gives him some flexibility he may not have had as a state legislator.”
Whether Ridley-Thomas exercises that flexibility in coming months is what businesses around the county are waiting to see.
