Supervisors, Take My Car--Please!

Dear Ventura County Supervisors:

I’ve been reading about your financial problems and can sympathize with you. For that reason, I’m giving you my car, free and clear.

Hold that gavel! Before you name a culvert or a dump site in my honor, let me explain.

Running a household is tough enough for anyone these days--and it’s made no easier on your salaries of less than $72,000 a year plus benefits. If you were running a 5,000-employee corporation instead of a 5,000-employee county, you’d be making $72,000 a week instead of $72,000 a year.

And in the private sector, you wouldn’t have to drive to ribbon-cuttings at fast-food restaurants or subdivisions, unless you owned one. You’d have the sun in the morning and the moon at night, not to mention some very attractive stock options.

But, alas, the people’s business is its own reward. That’s why you’ve been forced to think about giving yourselves a 7.7% raise and haggling over car leases and mileage allowances.

You don’t need to embarrass yourselves that way! In the spirit of self-sacrifice that impelled you into public service, you should give the raise to whoever is next elected supervisor from each of your districts. With one simple amendment, you can take yourselves out of the extra-compensation picture, unless you happen to win again. That should satisfy those ungrateful wretches who wonder whether money for supervisorial raises shouldn’t go toward something less vital, like keeping parks open or breathing life into comatose libraries.

Come to think of it, forget the raises.

You won’t waltz home with any more money, but one of you would have my car (you might have to flip for it), and that’s worth something.

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It’s a 1984 Honda Accord. It’s equipped with Holstein seat covers, new cup holder, new oil filter and fresh reservoir of good blue windshield-wiper fluid. I want you to have it.

If four other citizens also gave you their cars, you’d be spared a big headache. As you know, the blue-ribbon panel that recommended your raise asked you to make a choice: You can have either $375 monthly toward a lease payment or 31 cents a mile--but not, as you now have, both.

With my unprecedented and selfless donation, the choice will be made for you. Without car payments, you won’t need that monthly allowance of $375. You also won’t have to worry about getting a ding on the passenger door or ketchup on the upholstery, or any of the other things over which people with leased cars fret. Just take the mileage and run!

In most respects, my Honda is a perfect car. Its back bumper sags a little--but, after 162,541 hard miles, wouldn’t yours?

There’s also a bit of a rust problem. Last winter, silver-dollar-size holes appeared at each of the roof’s four corners. I carefully placed coffee cups over each to keep the weather out, but I found this impractical while driving.

Don’t worry, though; I’ve patched the holes with a miracle substance called Bondo, although the finish is a tad rough. In fact, my old Honda looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain, as one snippy British writer once said of another.

I bet you’re asking: Why would Steve part with this gem?

Frankly, I never intended to. I always said I’d drive it until it died, but it hasn’t cooperated. It keeps going and going--its bumper sagging lower, its rattles getting louder, its radio knobs falling off, its brake lights mysteriously turning on, ancient French fries suddenly popping up from between the seats. If there were an automotive Kevorkian, I’d summon him immediately. Otherwise, this car is, sadly, immortal.

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Anyhow, I’m ready for a new car and a modest tax write-off if you’re ready for some good, basic, free transportation around the county.

I know you’ll like it.

I also know you work hard, and that you have your hands full trying to care for the poor and the homeless and the sick, to fix roads and catch crooks, to stretch the pittance you get from the state for such monumental tasks.

But I was wondering: Do you happen to have any subsidies lying around for nice, middle-class families in need of new automobiles?

Oh well, just thought I’d ask.

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Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.