Writer Sees No Value in Rancho P.V. Cityhood

There are two questions that each voter should ask before casting a vote in any probable effort by Rancho Palos Verdes officials to raise city taxes:

1. Are we better off now than we were before this area was incorporated as a city?

2. What has the city done for me lately?

As a 25-year resident of this area and one who voted for incorporation in 1973, my answer to the first question must be a resounding, “No,” and my answer to the second question must be an equally resounding, “Nothing.”

As far as I am concerned, this well-intended experiment in local government has been an expensive and dismal failure and by voting against any increase in local taxes, we may succeed in ridding ourselves of at least one layer of costly and useless bureaucracy. Realistically, however, as a longtime observer of the bureaucratic species, I must admit that our chances in this regard are marginal at best, for this species is universally renowned for its ability to adapt and to flourish under the most adverse of circumstances.

Perhaps, an appropriate slogan for those who wish to support fiscal sanity and responsible government in the forthcoming tax increase campaign should be:

“Taxpayers of R.P.V. rebel!” You have nothing to lose but your bureaucrats.

ROBERT S. COUGHLIN

Rancho Palos Verdes