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Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky says he's actively looking for support to put a county executive initiative on next year's ballot. Voters have rejected the idea of an elected county exec before, but Yaroslavsky told the Current Affairs Forum at lunch that he thinks the time may be right. The mess at King/Drew Medical Center, for instance, would not have dragged on for so many years if there were, in effect, a county mayor to hold accountable instead of five Supes, he said: "You can't run a $21 billion corporation [with 100,000 employees] with a committee of five." Yaroslavsky also said that passage of Prop. 1B this month makes the Red Line subway to Fairfax Avenue — and perhaps to Westwood "in our lifetimes" — and the Expo Line to Santa Monica realistic possibilities. He had a personal angle to bring those up: it took him an hour and 41 minutes yesterday to drive from Olympic and 26th Street in Santa Monica to home near Beverly and La Brea during evening rush hour.
Also: Felipe Fuentes, chief of staff at the City Council to new State Sen.-elect Alex Padilla, introduced himself as a candidate to succeed his boss in the Valley's 7th council district. Talk in the room was more about the impact on the race of former Councilman Richard Alarcon, who was elected to the state Assembly just this month but who is considering stiffing his voters in order to run for the Council. Why? Passage of Measure R means he could serve six years, at a higher salary than in the state Assembly. If he does make the leap, the loser is current Assemblywoman Cindy Montaņez, who had lined up to run for the City Council vacancy with Alarcon's backing.