Cities Could Save by Consolidating

* A recent Orange County Grand Jury report suggests local governments should consolidate and downsize operations. I agree and support the call for more honest leadership.

Cleaning up government corruption will always be our burden. Creating livable communities will require innovative decision-making. One immediate solution to this mess is to consolidate small obsolete cities.

Consider eliminating the government of La Habra and combining our community with the town of Brea. The new town could be called La Brea.

La Habra would get the tax benefits of a regional mall and Brea would get $13 million in new appropriations. La Habra would get state-of-the-art planning and innovative leadership and Brea would get undervalued real estate, ripe for revitalization.

The consolidation and elimination of $2 million worth of useless La Habra bureaucracy will be opposed by the special interests, but supported by innovative and considerate thinkers.

The benefits to La Habrans include: televised council meetings; more buying power; street trees; covered bus stops; art in public places; landscaped medians; more cable stations; textured crosswalks; concerts in the park; underground power lines; better community planning and design review.

ROBERT DALE

La Habra

* For too long, the issue of reform of city and county governments in Los Angeles and Orange counties has lived in the category of “seldom is heard an encouraging word.” Two letters on Sept. 10 (“County Must Stick to Recovery Plan” and “City Employees Fare Too Well at Taxpayer Expense”) provide the encouragement and hope the subject deserves.

One more word should be added to the lexicon: consolidation. This relates to erasing duplication of city and county services by combining those services.

In the little fiefdoms of government, duplication of police, fire, public works, human resources, communications and administrative functions is rife. Duplication breeds unnecessary expense.

For example, is there any valid reason why such consolidation could not be implemented gradually and prudently for contiguous Los Alamitos, Cypress, La Palma and Seal Beach?

Cypress City Manager Darrell Essex thinks not. Several years ago he made a small beginning by persuading some of his government neighbors to save money by pooling certain communications and record-keeping functions.

When consolidation was broached to a then Los Alamitos police chief, he felt it was a good idea but politically unpopular. Maybe necessity and reality will change that to popular. Nothing less seems reasonable.

BILL LYNDE

Cypress