‘Let’s Leave the Ice Age’

Your editorial “Let’s Leave the Ice Age” (May 18) overlooked several points in its call for reform of county government. Los Angeles County is one of its most innovative and efficiently run local governments in America. We lead the nation in productivity reforms and contracting out of government services, which have saved county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year.

It was Los Angeles County that took the initiative to synchronize traffic signals countywide, in partnership with our 86 cities. Our volunteer program, in which 80,000 citizens donated more than 4 million hours of service last year, is a model for the nation.

What county governments need is not a reform of their structure but a fairer distribution of government revenues. As your paper has pointed out on numerous occasions, there are many state-controlled and county-administered programs that are underfunded by Sacramento.

To lighten the unjust burdens imposed on county governments through unfunded state mandates, the Legislature should allocate an additional one-half cent of the sales tax to counties.

As we have just learned, the state has an additional surplus of $2.5 billion. An equitable reallocation of these resources would give counties the funding they need without higher taxes.

Local government would not become more responsive and efficient if we merged the county and its cities to a single gigantic regional government. By destroying our 86 cities, local government would be removed from the people in those communities and placed into the hands of a regional bureaucracy.

Finally, a note about the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against the county: Challenging an unfair legal suit is responsible. As expert documents submitted in the case prove, it has now become clear that it is impossible to create a supervisorial district which would have a majority of legal voting-age Hispanic citizens.

Furthermore, it is absurd to redistrict the county in 1989 with antiquated 1980 census data. It makes more sense to wait for the results of the 1990 census, which will be reflective of the county’s current population.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor

Fifth District

Los Angeles County