Yvonne Burke's Crumbling Kingdom

According to the county’s Department of Public Social Services, 23,020 people are on General Relief, more than in any of the four other districts. The figures for food stamps are similarly depressing, with the 2nd District leading in all but one age group, including the key working age category of 21-59.

The L.A. Homeless Services Authority’s 2007 report on the county’s homeless population shows that Burke’s district, which does not include Skid Row, nevertheless contains both the highest number and the largest proportion of homeless, 34.4 percent, an increase over the 2005 census of the homeless.

Illustration by Ismael Roldan

Poodle politics: Splashed across Ebony's cover in 1974, Burke faded into near obscurity, hating to get her hands dirty.

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More About

• Yvonne Burke
• Bill Burke
• Damien Goodmon
• Politics
• Local Politics

These privations of 2nd District residents contrast sharply with the incandescent world of Yvonne and her husband, Bill.

He is best known as the overseer of the Los Angeles Marathon. The institution has been freckled with controversy since 1985, when the Los Angeles City Council awarded the lucrative contract to run the race to Bill Burke — a businessman with a doctorate in education who had dabbled in African gold mining and California health care. Even though he had no apparent qualifications for the job, aside from his title as commissioner of tennis during the 1984 Olympics, the City Council handed him the plum marathon contract over two higher-ranked and more experienced bidders.

Publicity has followed Bill Burke all the way to his PR gaffe this year, about women runners, when he told a TV interviewer, without a trace of irony, “You can’t keep those women down.... You can’t get them back in the kitchen.”

“He’s colorful,” offers City Councilman Wesson. “People will look back at them as a power couple. Dr. Burke sits on boards and commissions.”

Indeed, Bill Burke, an arduous political fund-raiser, was so determined to keep his longtime appointment as the representative for the Speaker of the Assembly on the influential board of the Southern California Air Quality Management District that his friends in Sacramento passed Senate Bill 886 last year, a custom law written for one man — Burke. The law’s sole effect was to let the termed-out Burke keep his powerful smog-board post for an extra term. Talk about how a Bill becomes a law.

“They’re millionaires living in a mansion in Brentwood, whereas she represents the poorest of the poor,” Islamic H.O.P.E.’s Najee Ali says of the couple. “[Bill’s] obviously made people question her character because of his own questionable business practices. She’s a businesswoman, she’s about the money, like her husband. And at times, that’s taken precedence over the interests of the community.”

If Burke’s allies cannot think of any faults, others can’t readily think of her accomplishments as supervisor.

“I don’t know of any,” says Larry Aubry flatly. “I can’t say.”

Damien Goodmon, the Expo Line activist, chafes when asked about Burke’s political legacy, especially regarding transportation safety.

“She thought her early years would be how she was evaluated,” he says. “But your last years should be as important as your first. Her legacy on this project will last 100 years — with each accident and each person who gets hit.”

Burke’s supporters cite her commitment to children as evidence of her dedication to 2nd District constituents, particularly to her district’s county-funded foster-child programs and child-care centers. They also point to construction of the Magic Johnson Recreation Area.

In a conversation with L.A. Weekly, Burke confirms that besides her support of a county “living wage” ordinance enacted in 1999, she sees her legacy in initiatives like the Compton Project, which tries to keep children from broken homes out of foster care by placing them with blood-family members instead. She also cites faith-based programs that interest local church members in adopting those children who have no hope of remaining with blood relatives.

Then there’s the Beach Project, in which 2nd District kids learn to surf, as well as Fishing in the City, which teaches them how to fish. Burke rattles off a list of other achievements that will cement her legacy, and that includes soccer fields, Little League diamonds and the Baldwin Hills Conservancy.

Perhaps one of her biggest achievements has been the expansion of the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, a major park. The example is an ironic one, as Burke is the late Hahn’s political heir (since 1952, they have been the only two supervisors to represent the area), and the supervisors hold their board meetings at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration downtown. Both Hahn and the McCone Commission that investigated the Watts riots also were instrumental in creating King/Drew, a facility that fulfilled the critical health care needs of South Los Angeles but that also became a Waterloo of black identity politics.

Burke’s detractors assert that during the years leading to the facility’s final crises and closing, Burke was warned of its continual failings by her staff members but made no attempts to reverse the hospital’s decline.