It might not work out the way The NY Times hopes....
Posted on 01/20/2025 7:17:05 AM PST by MtnClimber
Wrong, wrong, wrong. And psychologically interesting, as an examination of ideological priors. But mostly wrong.
The New York Times has an answer to the question raised by the fires in Los Angeles, and, uh. So here’s how they frame the problem:
The city of Los Angeles, with a population of 3.8 million, is one of 88 different cities that make up the county of Los Angeles. That county, with a population of 9.6 million spread across 4,751 square miles stretching inland from the Pacific Ocean, is controlled by a five-person board of supervisors, each one representing 1.9 million people. Each of those supervisors rivals the mayor of Los Angeles in clout as they oversee their own fiefdoms in the nation’s most populous county, even if they are relatively unknown by constituents.
Within those vast borders, there is a Los Angeles Police Department and a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as well as an additional 45 police departments protecting, to name a few, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Inglewood and Pasadena. There are dozens of municipal fire departments, including one that serves the city and another that serves the county.
So when bad stuff happens, see, everything gets all confused. Nobody knows who’s even in charge!
And here’s the indescribably horrible answer, with emphasis added, highlighting the sentence that gave me dry heaves:
These structural tensions have long been a source of frustration for Los Angeles mayors. In interviews, two of them — Mr. Garcetti and Antonio Villaraigosa — said they would support creating a dominant government representing the region, to replace the network of overlapping municipal governments. Mr. Villaraigosa said he supported, for example, remaking Los Angeles along the lines of San Francisco, which is both a county and a city. They both argued the issue had become more urgent with the kind of natural disasters that have come with climate change.
They compare the poor health of Los Angeles, with diffused leadership, to the good health of cities with unified systems of authority, like San Francisco, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. Please try to guess my current facial expression. Imagine a place being as healthy as Philadelphia, if you dare to dream of such things.
So the path to health is the centralization of power and the elimination of separate jurisdictions. You could make Manhattan Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Glendora much healthier by just having all of those places entirely governed right out of downtown Los Angeles, eliminating their local city councils and school boards and just having one bold Karen Bass figure at the top.
This isn’t merely wrong — it’s actively insane. Los Angeles is geographically diffused and slow to transit; friends complain about meeting eight miles away, because it’s so far. Before MLB screwed up the minor leagues, we used to spend a good part of every summer at High-A baseball games in Lancaster (still in Los Angeles County) and Rancho Cucamonga (a few miles into a neighboring county). I would invite other families to join us. They would squint and say, “Out there?” Thou embarkest upon a journey to yon Outer Lands? Like it was a quest to drive over the mountains to see the Lancaster Jethawks. Unifying all of this into one streamlined jurisdiction is disenfranchisement. It’s an assault on representation. “Great news, we’ve moved your city hall to the middle of the 4,751 square-mile county.”
But beyond that, the strawman is that the fragmentation into separate jurisdictions is a failure and an impediment to practical effort.
Case in point: You know about the two disastrous fires that started in dry brush and high winds in the hills of Los Angeles County on the night of January 7, but you haven’t heard of the third, because it wasn’t a disaster. That third fire happened in my tiny suburban town, South Pasadena, a city that doesn’t work at all but somehow has solid police and fire departments that operate in their own cultural bubble, outside the local malaise. Our fire was a big problem, or would have been, as it grew explosively in the first moments after it started burning:...SNIP
Due to their incompetence they should be given even greater power?
Incompetence with more fires today.
Article:
“natural disasters that have come with climate change”
Making policy based on the religious views of witch doctors is never a good idea.
“...The contest was a virtual dead heat on Election Night. Caruso pulled slightly ahead last Thursday, but since then Bass gained a steady lead....”
Sounds familiar?
LA and CA: You need to secure your bleeping elections.
With the Olympics coming in 4 years Mittens would make a good rebuilding Czar. He’s got a home in SD. An accomplished loser. A rino who could put LA to work going red.
And if LA and CA need any further incentive...
Imagine The Big One hitting with Deep State in charge....
Secure your bleeping elections.
The Slimes omits the facts that Los Angeles is run by lesbians with a Marxist-atheist mayor, and that California is a single party state run by a lifelong liar and *****.
Locally around LA we call them the STUPID-visors - except for Tracy Park, who replaced the truly odious Mike Bonin (he, the king of the “road diet” which turned people’s 30 minute commutes into 90 minute nightmares).
I hear PDJT is headed out on Friday.
Los Angeles needs a warden because Los Angeles, like these other former cities, has long been an open air prison / psych ward.
Actually that’s the one thing Mitt is good at. He was part of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee.
The NYT is making the assumption that this Los Angeles “strongman” will somehow be wise and competent.
There is no reason at all to believe that. At least now, there could be a competent person or two among the many independent fiefdoms.
Better the NYT investigate how all the current idiots got elected in the first place. And maybe also do some honest reporting on their incompetence.
But of course the NYT won’t be doing any of that.
LA needs Republican rule!
It might not work out the way The NY Times hopes....
They need an actual man. The mayor is a communist woman. The three lesbos of the apocalypse run the fire department, a woman ran the water supply authority.
This is radical feminism and socialism.
They are unable to properly operate an infrastructure built by men.
Lol. In the movie Demolition Man, it’s the year 2032 in the city of San Angeles, ruled by a dictator.
No, no ‘Strongmen’
That would merely confirm California’s decline into a Third World Shtthole.
Need a Mike Rowe/Dennis Quaid type.
That county, with a population of 9.6 million spread across 4,751 square miles stretching inland from the Pacific Ocean.
Most of them are illegals whites and black are a minority of 40% it’s why votes always swings to the democrats the more the illegals the stronger the vote.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.