100 Days: Molina Shakes Up Board : Supervisors: New member attacks friend and foe in effort to open up government. Critics say confrontations work against her.

When she was sworn into office 100 days ago, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina made a symbolic gesture, ordering the removal of metal detectors from the entrance to the board’s chambers.

“If they could lock up the front doors, if we could do everything in closed session, I think there is a majority on this board that would like it that way,” Molina said in an interview last week.

Molina--the first Latino elected to the board this century and the first woman ever elected--has shaken up the bureaucracy. In three months, she also has become the most outspoken member of the board’s new, liberal majority and has sparred with ideological allies and opponents alike.

The tough, 5-foot-tall daughter of an immigrant laborer has grilled bureaucrats. She has castigated her colleagues for voting themselves a $392-a-month “professional development allowance” with budget cuts looming.

She has spurned perks, refusing to have a chauffeur and questioning why supervisors need bulletproof, armor-plated cars.

And she has been asked to speak at Harvard University and has become known to the national media.

“I got a call from USA Today,” Molina aide Robert Alaniz said recently. “They wanted a comment on the riots in Washington, D.C. She finds it a little bit overwhelming and sometimes amusing that all of a sudden she has been ordained as the national spokesperson on Hispanic issues.”

Her actions and her sometimes sharp attacks on the political establishment have not endeared her to her colleagues. “No comment,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich when asked about Molina’s first 100 days. “It’s better that way.”

Molina said in an interview last week that she has made some progress on her primary goal of opening up county government, but has a long way to go. “I think we’re making an impact,” she said.

“I have never seen this form of hidden government anywhere,” Molina added. “Here, the bureaucrats are running the place. . . . Worst of all is that there are people who are willing to allow them to operate that way.”

Richard B. Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer, responded, “I truly believe that given a chance, the bureaucracy wants to please the supervisor.”

Molina, 43, a former Los Angeles city councilwoman, took office March 8 after winning a special election in a redrawn 1st District. The district was created by a judge who ruled that the all-Anglo board had drawn election boundaries to deny representation to the county’s 3 million Latinos in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Her victory not only made her among the most prominent Latinos in the country but broke a decade of conservative control of the board that administers an $11.1-billion budget for the nation’s most populous county.

“The Hispanic community now feels they have somebody they can go to,” said Richard Fajardo, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a plaintiff in the redistricting lawsuit. “She has been very good at raising issues that haven’t been raised from the perspective of the Hispanic community.”

Mike Clements, lead organizer for the East Valleys Organization, said that Molina is more accessible than her predecessor, Pete Schabarum, who retired after nearly two decades in office. “What I’ve noticed is that people in our organization, and people generally, are much more hopeful and feel they have a hands-on supervisor that will listen,” said Clements.

During her campaign, Molina pledged to pursue an ambitious agenda of political reform, including expansion of the board, campaign contribution limits, regulation of lobbyists and ethics rules for supervisors.

She is still drafting the proposals. But when they are presented to the board, approval is uncertain. The other supervisors--conservatives and liberals alike--have said they have yet to decide whether they would support a City Hall-style ethics package.

Among her early accomplishments, Molina: sponsored legislation requiring that companies seeking county business identify how many of their employees and owners are minorities and women, required that public notices include a phone number that Spanish-speaking residents can call for a translation and posted a $25,000 reward to track down companies responsible for contaminating groundwater in the San Gabriel Valley.

She has become an advocate for Latino and women’s issues, and she has increased the number of Latinos and women on county commissions. And she served as a translator for Spanish-speaking residents at board meetings.

Molina’s low point during her first 100 days, according to staffers, was when press reports appeared about her husband’s contract with the county. Her husband, Ron Martinez, continued to receive county business after a contract for the same work was withdrawn from board consideration earlier this year to avoid political controversy during Molina’s campaign. The county’s chief administrative officer is conducting an investigation.

Molina has said that she has not voted on any contract involving her husband and was unaware of the details surrounding his work for the county, which now has been halted.

Molina has brought to county government the same independent, sometimes confrontational, style that she displayed on the City Council but which critics say is a handicap in the give-and-take of the political process.

“She’s going to have trouble unless she learns to count to three” said one county department head, referring to the minimum number of votes needed for approvals. The department head, speaking on the condition that he not be named, added: “Once she decides what she wants to change, she’ll get there faster if she works harder at getting along with her colleagues.”

Her lengthy questioning--critics say browbeating--of bureaucrats at board meetings has drawn criticism from some of her colleagues.

“She would do better if she would have direct contact with the department heads; in other words, invite them into her office rather than attempt to do it at the board,” said Supervisor Deane Dana. “She’s going to learn that this is a very well-run county.”

“She’s not playing the county game,” said a supervisor’s aide who requested anonymity. “That hurts her effectiveness.”

Responded Molina: “It is that county game that is troublesome to me and it’s why I got here. . . . It’s disgraceful what goes on behind the scenes.”

Sarah Flores, who ran against Molina in the 1st District race and is now an aide to Antonovich, said that she has heard complaints that Molina “is very difficult to get a hold of.”

“I have made attempts to reach her office and had no response,” said Raul Nunez, president of the Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Assn.

Alaniz said that Molina has refused to meet with some people, including the head of the county’s biggest labor union, who supported her opponent, state Sen. Art Torres, in the 1st District race. “They want to say ‘let bygones be bygones,’ even though they dragged her name through the mud” during the campaign, Alaniz said. “They haven’t been forgiven.”

When she was elected, Molina joined Supervisors Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn in forming a new liberal majority on the board.

Together, the majority has voted to authorize the distribution of bleach kits and condoms to fight the spread of AIDS and settlement of a lawsuit increasing general relief to thousands of homeless. Both actions had been opposed by the board’s former conservative majority.

But it did not take long for cracks to form in the liberal bloc. Molina was furious when Hahn pushed for a vote on his proposal to expand the board to seven members, rather than wait for Molina to introduce her expansion proposal. According to aides, Hahn was angry at publicity Molina had received when she advocated board expansion--an issue that Hahn has long championed.

Hahn, the board’s senior member, downplayed the friction between him and Molina, saying: “The new kid on the block wants to be heard. I acted that way. How can you get mad at a person who is doing just what you did 40 years ago?”

Some of her colleagues are still angry with Molina for her caustic comments in regard to the $392-a-month personal development allowance that supervisors voted themselves. “They’re sending me to charm school with that money,” Molina quipped.