Dan Walters notices problems with county government
Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters mostly focuses on how California's state government functions, or fails to function, depending on one's point of view. His column today points a finger at county governments, asking about their validity. The column is remarkably clear about the perspective that county government isn't necessarily best-suited to serving the municipal needs of developed urban areas. Though he wrote about Los Angeles County, he could have just as easily highlighted Sacramento County's UnCity communities such as Arden Arcade. He quotes Zev Yaroslavsky, a long-time member (now retired) of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and thus one of California's icons of local government, who said this about county government:
"It’s the worst form of government, unless you are one of the five,” Yaroslavsky said. Likening counties to the Soviet Union, he added, “Our system is ultimately going to collapse of its own dead weight."Zev Yaroslavsky, retired Los Angeles County Supervisor