Sunday, February 5, 2012

Consolidation of county services - outsourcing

 
Last of these thoughtful Pacifica Tribue, Letters-to-the-editor, 1/31/12, "City services" by Fran Larson

"Editor: Examining the results of the survey on services for Pacifica I was disappointed both in the level of responses (7 percent) from the citizens that were forwarded the "yellow cards" and the obvious lack of information of those 1,474 responding citizens. People normally respond emotionally when they are not furnished the facts. The task force did a terrific job of putting forth the valid questions on the survey but the public was not given enough detail of how passage or failure of each item would really effect the level of services for residents of Pacifica.

Didn't get our questions answered!
The public meeting unfortunately was not organized to furnish information to the citizens that did respond. Obviously, the task force did not expect the vast turnout and the result was a mulling crowd that had little or no opportunity to have discussion of the issues. The chosen impartial facilitator approach was not really effective in this case. Actually, impartial presentations do not result in an informed voter. The task force group took down the names of all citizens that turned out that cold night and I hope there is a plan to contact all those people with additional facts. Standing on the sidelines of the community center room and impartially answering questions was not done effectively nor was that the way to actually inform voters.

In my former southern California community the city forwarded a brochure to all residents explaining fully the effects of proposed changes in taxation policies and some real debate about each issue. Voters need all the facts in order to make informed decisions. I would hope that prior to making the final judgement our city council does make a real try to get more input from voters prior to their taking action on these important measures that will effect the welfare of all families in Pacifica and tries as well to get more information out to the public.

Is this our best answer?
Coming from my experience of living in Los Angeles County I know the value of "functional consolidation" of services. Los Angeles County has about 100 cities now with two large fire departments, Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County. Prior to the '60s there were 66 incorporated cities, all with their separate inefficient fire and police departments. The Bell city fire truck would stop at Bell Gardens city line and say, oops, that is their fire and return to their station. People had been taught that local control was the way to go and every Fire Chief wanted to be supreme in their "pond" and didn't want to consolidate with their next door neighbor and just be a little "frog." They had to be convinced that local control might actually be less effective and more expensive and it took some educating to get that job done.

The County Firefighters took on that battle and in a few years organizing on the Contract Cities was a reality and fire service in Los Angeles County was tremendously improved at less cost and more efficiency. The Sheriff of Los Angeles County followed that example and consolidated police services became a reality. "Outsourcing "is not the proper term for what is being proposed here and elsewhere. Currently that term is feared by our public. Regional services should be encouraged and the fable of "local control" should be dismissed. All citizens need efficiency in services and fairness in taxation."

Posted by Kathy Meeh

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great letter Fran. I hope you sent a copy to each councilmember.
This is the kind of solution they need to aggressively explore instead of always reaching for my wallet and yours. Their claim that the public doesn't support this is shamefully unethical. People can't support what they don't understand and council has made sure no one understands by failing to gather the info and present it. We are being very poorly served by Council.

Anonymous said...

This whole process has been a complete joke. They give us a poll which forces their ideas on us without any data. They conveniently leave out any mention of wages and benefits of their friends. And if anyone at the meeting brought up cutting city employees the task force or council would patronizingly say "we already cut them 3.5 million", or "that's the going rate".

The whole thing stinks.

I think we need some major news organizations to investigate for malfeasance.

Anonymous said...

Pay more taxes, Save our asses.
Catchy. I like it. Chanting it while in uniform should work. Put a huge cardboard figure of a mean looking deputy sheriff next to you as you sing. Oh, Pacifica PD you're gonna win sooo big. With all this help from Council you can really screw those taxpayers just like Council does.

Anonymous said...

Anon@408,
It's definitely malodorous but it probably isn't malfeasance. Basically, it's Pacifica and incompetence here can rise to astonishing levels before the voters take action. Hard to believe, but we're not there yet.

Anonymous said...

Great post on Riptide today about this outrage. It ends by putting the blame right where it belongs--Council and City Manager.

Anonymous said...

Riptide sucks. Mayburry deletes posts that don't fit hie left wing agenda.

In fact you are probably Mayburry trying to draw people to your unpopular blog.

Anonymous said...

anon619 No, I'm not Maybury but you're Riptide's best advertisment.
Keep up the good work!

Kathy Meeh said...

John's pictures are the best, Anons (619), (524). Anyhow, here's the information for your further comment. "Our police department is top-heavy with overpaid and underworked management personnel. Out of top staff of more than 33 employees, only 19 are working cops. At any one time, expect two to be out sick, on leave, or on some other kind of assignment. That leaves only about 17 working. Given a 40-hour workweek, that means we are lucky if we have six cops on the street at any one time. These guys are basically traffic cops. Yet they get paid like FBI agents, more than $110,000 per year, plus huge pensions. Management in the police department is highly paid. The last police chief robbed us by drawing pay over $300,000 and now gets a huge pension. Police should protect and serve, not steal from the citizens. Pacifica has become like Bell, California. It is time to reform the pay structure of our PD or just shut it down and let the county sheriff take it over. I am outraged. Our City Council and city manager let us down by permitting this to happen." Posted on Pacifica Riptide by: Eric Steiner | February 05, 2012 at 10:36 AM

Hutch said...

I Agree with Eric 100%.

It's time to let local news agencies in on what's going on here.

Contact CBS5, KRON, NBC Bay Area, the Chronicle and let them know they should look into what's going on in Pacifica.

I did.