Valley Secession

Re “Valley Cityhood Effort Helps All,” Commentary, March 18: Bruce Bialosky fires his shotgun criticisms of Los Angeles hoping that one of his rhetorical pellets hits the target. Clearly there are problems in the delivery of services. These problems are not because of some mythic stranglehold of public employee unions over the City Council.

A more likely cause of the service deficit is that since 1990, the civilian work force, meaning non-police or fire, has shrunk by 30% while the city has grown. Scarce resources are spread so thin that $44 billion in major infrastructure improvements are being postponed to the danger point.

I am the president of the largest civilian union representing city workers. We are passionately committed to providing the highest quality services to the residents and businesses in the city. We are dedicated to working with both the new neighborhood councils and elected officials to continuously find new cost-effective ways of serving the public. Valley secession may empower a few self-promoters, but it won’t benefit the working families in the Valley or anywhere else in the city.

STEPHEN HUTCHINSON

President, Engineers and

Architects Assn., Los Angeles