Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, 3rd District, has had no shortage of issues to deal with since she took office late last year, but she said she was more than ready.

L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl recently stopped by the Miracle Mile to discuss ideas and services. (photo by Jonathan Van Dyke)

During her first board meeting on Dec. 2, Kuehl was thrust into the conversation regarding the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) and the county jail — which had come under intense scrutiny and a federal probe during former Sheriff Lee Baca’s final years. That day, Kuehl joined her colleagues in a vote that began the process of creating an LASD citizens oversight commission.

“There was no question,” she said last Thursday while visiting the Miracle Mile. “I didn’t have to start thinking about it on Dec. 2, I already knew there ought to be one.”

The board of supervisors created a working group, which has continued to hammer out the details regarding the future oversight commission.

“There’s no template for a citizens oversight commission,” Kuehl said. “The working group is inventing, after a lot of public hearings, what the oversight commission will look like and the scope of its duties.”

Questions that must be answered will include whether the commission will supervise the inspector general, will it have the power of subpoena, and how many people and who will serve on it.

Recently, the board of supervisors extended the deadline for the working group’s first report, but Kuehl said she expects the oversight commission will be formed well before the end of the year.

“I think it is critical,” she said. “It’s not the fault of the current sheriff (newly elected Sheriff Jim McDonnell), but a very large amount from the 2015-16 budget is going to go to paying off claims against the sheriff’s department, for mostly use-of-force issues in the jail, or neglect. And there are other issues coming up.”

Perhaps the largest project Kuehl will oversee during her time on the board will be the implementation of Metro’s subway system, and locally, the Purple Line Extension Project. She also serves on the Metro board.

“I am extremely optimistic about it, and not only that, but I’m a cheerleader for it and I’m really excited to have rapid transit criss-crossing L.A. County,” she said.

So far, Kuehl said, the complaints on early construction have been minimal, but she acknowledged there would be challenges ahead.

“The concerns that people have, have not looked realistic to me,” she said. “But one wonders once we start tunneling past the [La Brea] Tar Pits, whether all the evidence we have that [says] we won’t be near to them or near enough is really true. There is just a lot that isn’t known, and that’s the difficult thing.”

But she added that the sacrifice would be worth it.

“You can’t be a great city without [a subway system],” she said.

Beyond the Purple Line, Kuehl said she wants to make sure the local area was receiving its fair share of services.

She said the county has been working with Sacramento to capture as many tax credits as possible for the entertainment industry. She also noted that the Miracle Mile could be an area that could benefit from the recent boon in entertainment jobs.

“The Miracle Mile is a miracle because it sort of caught a wave at the time [of its inception], with the next new thing,” Kuehl said. “I don’t know why it couldn’t do that again.”

Taking care of children has been a major point of emphasis to Kuehl since she took office.

There was a blue ribbon commission to identify what the county could do better in relation to children, family problems and foster care, and the county has been slowly implementing its recommendations, with Kuehl at the forefront of the effort.

The board recently established the Office of Child Protection to oversee children and family services, social services, mental health, health and public health. The board also established a mission statement on the matter: that every single department must prioritize the welfare and safety of children.

“We don’t care if they are public works or animal welfare — find a way to do it,” Kuehl said.

In the coming weeks, Kuehl has several initiatives she wants to launch.

She wants to relax rules regarding how long convicted criminals — mainly those with lesser offenses — must wait for public housing help.

“It doesn’t even matter how long ago you were convicted, some are just drug offenses, you can’t get public housing,” she said. “It actually contributes quite a bit to the homelessness problem. It’s the county that is being more stringent than the state and the feds.”

Kuehl plans request that the county examine raising the minimum wage, possibly similar to what Los Angeles is considering — $13.25 by 2017 and $15.25 by 2019.

“The difference is, in the city, it’s primarily about the businesses and the other people who have to pay the minimum wage,” Kuehl said. “In the county, we have unincorporated areas, about a tenth of the county, but the main thing is we employ 100,000 people. For us, it’d be a big lift.”

She said the board would likely ask the Economic Development Corporation to evaluate all the studies that have been completed so far on the minimum wage and to report back.

The supervisor said she also wanted the county to examine what funding mechanisms could be used in a ballot measure for a park initiative that could be used to purchase land and help fund park maintenance.

By the end of the year, Kuehl said it was her goal to break down the barriers across the county departments, and have them act more collaboratively than ever, which will in turn, offer better services to county constituents — the people who were kind enough to vote her into office less than a year ago.