Bugging Vector Control Won’t Exterminate Tax Hikers
James Webb is a scientist. A “vector ecologist,” to be exact. With a title like that, it sounds like he ought to be in aerospace, but Webb pointed out that a vector also refers to anything that transmits disease to people. So, when you walk into Webb’s working area, you’ll see shelves of books with titles such as “The Housefly,” “Principles of Insect Physiology” and “Insects and Human Society.”
Webb considers his job with the county’s Vector Control District “heaven,” because he can apply the scientific study he enjoys to his 9-to-5 routine. It’s getting paid for what you like to do. Indeed, Webb’s idea of fun is to talk to co-workers about bug identification and disease patterns of mosquitoes. I doubt he has a bureaucratic bone in his body.
Even after 13 years with Orange County government, Webb works in a cramped workstation. His desk space is small, and he and his colleagues keep some of their books and journals on the floor because there isn’t enough shelf space. The Taj Mahal, this ain’t.
In fact, almost everything about Vector Control headquarters where Webb works--from the name itself to its secluded location near the Garden Grove Freeway on Garden Grove Boulevard--smacks of working in anonymity. To press the point one more step, Vector Control service is so nondescript that even its cost is almost invisible--$1.10 a year to its customers.
What I’m trying to say is that of all the battlegrounds between the public and the government, Vector Control is one of the last places you’d look.
But attack the masses did on Wednesday, storming Vector Control headquarters and taking no prisoners. Several dozen angry ratepayers showed up to protest the district’s proposal to increase the annual fee to $3.19. One of the angry citizens called the board members “very, very evil.”
You heard me right--three dollars and nineteen cents a year .
Twenty-seven cents a month.
Maybe you think 27 cents a month is still too much for an agency you’ve never heard of. And most likely, you haven’t heard of Vector Control unless you’ve called them to come check out your mosquitoes or rats. Well, somebody ‘s been calling them. Last year, Webb said, the office received 12,000 service requests.
I dropped in unannounced Thursday at Vector Control, to see if anyone was still alive after Wednesday’s onslaught. Webb isn’t the head of the agency and could have justifiably dodged me, but he agreed to see me without an appointment. It bothers him, he said, that the public would think of Vector Control as a “devious” layer of bureaucracy unaccountable to anyone.
Webb said he understands the public anger and says citizens have an “honest, legitimate gripe” about taxation. He also understands that some of them think that the agency was trying to slip a fast one by them when it sent out plain-looking notices with small print.
However, he says, the anger is misdirected. The notices, he said, were sent out as cheaply as possible, because the agency had to send out 743,000 of them. The rationale for the fee increase, as explained to the citizens, is that revenues have been shifting between county and state and there was a budget shortfall.
Webb knows that it’s not just $3.19 that has people upset. One week their utility rates go up, the next week their cable rates go up, the next week there’s another special district raising rates, the next week it’s good ol’ Vector Control. Eventually, you feel tapped out.
But here we go again: People want services--in this case, checking on rats or mosquitoes--and assume that it doesn’t cost money.
The drip-drip of taxes and fees drives some people nuts, especially if they think someone’s trying to get away with something.
I don’t think Webb and his cohorts are trying to get away with anything. They provide a professional, absolutely imperative public service, and it ain’t free--although, at 27 cents a month, it practically is.
If you want to reargue Prop. 13 and the balance between tax revenues and the cost of services in California, call your state legislator. Call the governor.
But why scream at Vector Control? That’s like yelling at your spouse because your boss made you mad.
Besides, the next time you see a rat on the loose, who you going to call after you’ve shut down Vector Control?
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.
