Why Do We Need All These Cities?

* The whining of Sal Sapien (Orange County Voices, Nov. 5) about lack of revenue for small cities in Orange County is a good example of what is wrong with many cities here and throughout Southern California.

The basic problem is that we have too many cities. I live in Garden Grove, very close to Councilman Sapien’s Stanton. I can’t tell where Garden Grove ends and Stanton begins, and the same goes for other neighboring cities such as Westminster, Fountain Valley and Orange.

What justification is there for so many? I seriously doubt that there are such significantly different needs, interests or problems to be solved in each of these cities to justify the duplication of bureaucracy, municipal offices, etc. The same holds true for all of Orange County and also for most other counties in Southern California.

In Orange County we have 31 cities. Not only is there tremendous duplication of overhead, I doubt if the many smaller cities can afford adequately qualified staff to handle the more complex issues of planning, traffic control, etc. Just driving around the county it is obvious that there is little, if any, coordination between all these cities.

Many of these cities contract with the County of Orange for such basic services as fire and police protection. This is further evidence that they have no real reason to exist.

Some of these cities have in recent years been on the verge of bankruptcy (and this was before the Orange County financial debacle). Do we need any more evidence of the lack of justification for so many fiefdoms?

If the smaller cities ceased to exist, I suspect the savings would be very large. Of course, there wouldn’t be so many places for people like Mr. Sapien to be a big fish in a little pond, but the taxpayers would certainly benefit.

DAVID MCMILLIN

Garden Grove