A new Los Angeles County seal approved Tuesday by county supervisors will depict a San Gabriel mission and an American Indian woman while deleting a cross symbol that stirred controversy.
The Board of Supervisors by a 3-2 vote approved the new design to avoid a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which claimed the cross represented a government endorsement of Christianity.
An image of the Hollywood Bowl will replace oil derricks that represented the once-vast oil fields of Signal Hill and Long Beach. The pagan goddess Pomona also was swapped for the image of an Indian woman.
The cross had been part of the seal since 1957.
Supervisor Gloria Molina said replacing the seals will be a gradual process that could take 10 or more years. Other officials said replacing the seal could cost nearly $1 million.
Officials said the Indian woman represents the early inhabitants of the Los Angeles basin and the mission symbol represents the role they played in the region's settlement.
Supervisors Gloria Molina, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky voted for the new seal to spare the county a costly legal battle, while Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe voted to keep the existing seal.
"My religion is my business and it's not government's business to tell me which religion is right," Yaroslavsky said.
Antonovich said the new seal was "a waste of time, energy and tax dollars for a radical organization's political agenda."
A committee led by a David R. Hernandez, a GOP candidate for a U.S. Congressional district in the San Fernando Valley, planned to overturn the board's approval by collecting signatures for a possible ballot initiative.