Escaping the County Is No Solution

Antelope Valley residents have long sung a “woe is me” tune. We claim the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors treats us like an unwanted stepchild, greedily grabbing our tax revenue and giving back little in return. We cite examples like the inability of the county to provide a new courthouse when our current one in Lancaster is woefully inadequate. We claim the county has turned its back on us in addressing the absence of a hospital in Palmdale, the dumping of sludge in the valley and the lack of locally based services such as a helicopter for transporting residents in life-and-death situations.

Recently, the “woe is me” tune reached a crescendo when Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster) introduced a bill that could allow communities to exit Los Angeles County and form their own. Although the announcement politically stroked those who have long wanted the autonomy, authority and potential financial windfall that separating could bring, Runner’s bill falsely encourages residents to believe that life without L.A. County would be the Antelope Valley’s salvation.

More about political maneuvering than finding solutions, the bill is a venue for creating another level of bureaucracy by establishing an agency to study other agencies. It provides a smoke screen for nonperforming local politicians who lack the ability to attract non-aerospace businesses in significant numbers as a way of stabilizing our volatile economic base, who refuse to acknowledge or address the racial and economic divide in this community, and who have dragged their feet in assisting local school districts to strengthen, not dismantle, public education. It also insults the intelligence of those who know the Antelope Valley has an ironclad umbilical chord relationship with L.A. County.

If Runner needs a more definitive road map of how to spend $1 million, he should think about strengthening the child abuse reporting, investigation and medical service process available in the Antelope Valley, since we are viewed as the child-abuse reporting capital of L.A. County. The $1 million would also be of great value to Palmdale as that city struggles to expand a library built for 12,000 residents that is now bursting at the seams due to unprecedented city growth. Or what about $1 million for valleywide youth performing arts programs, or as a boost for senior citizens’ programs?

If Runner’s goal in introducing this bill is to move the Antelope Valley from stepchild status to full-blooded heir, he should begin by holding the county’s feet to the fire on projects that really count. He should be on the front line fighting for High Desert Hospital in Lancaster, a county facility serving more than 350,000 people, including the indigent and working poor. He should hail its recent rating of 98 from an accreditation body--a rating only 4% of hospitals nationwide receive--and use that to caution the county not to privatize High Desert and then let it slip into bankruptcy and closure, something that has become a nationwide health plague. Or he should be on the forefront of the sludge issue, joining with Supervisor Mike Antonovich to block any attempt to make the Antelope Valley a waste processor for the rest of the county.

The test of a strong leader lies not in his ability to cry wolf but in his ability to bring about change in a rational manner. A bill advocating a $1-million research effort is the stuff of politics and busy work. It’s not about finding solutions or looking out for the little guy. Banging on the door, demanding a seat at the table and resolving quality-of-life issues is what effective, responsive leadership is about. It’s time to get back to business and start solving real problems, one at a time.