Brown Seeks to Abolish Local Governments

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said Saturday he has asked the Assembly Office of Research to study his proposal to abolish city and county governments.

In his weekly radio address, Brown suggested that California’s 58 county and 445 city governments should be replaced by a few regional agencies.

“We do not have a rational system of local governments in California,” Brown said. “What we have is a haphazard, random assortment of governing bodies all fighting over the same dollars.”

Brown, who has acknowledged that his proposal would be politically “almost impossible” to carry out, said regional governments would be cheaper and more efficient.

“In addition,” he said, “it would recognize that the most serious problems California faces--air pollution, water quality, freeway gridlock, public transit and crime--do not recognize current jurisdictional boundaries.” Brown urged Gov. George Deukmejian to create a panel of city, county and business leaders to study his proposal.

“Make no mistake,” he said. “As California approaches the year 2000, many new problems will confront us and existing problems will intensify. And solutions must be found within the constraints of limited public dollars.”