Why are Los Angeles services so bad? (Vanity Question)

Self | 01/12/2004 | David H Dennis

[daviddennis]

I just bought a house in Woodland Hills, and am about to receive my first property tax bill, of over $5,000 a year for my $428,000 home. For those unaware, I was very lucky to get such a cheap home out here on the hills. The average price in my zip code is pushing $700k. The home itself would be laughed at outside of California; it's 1000 square feet and has two bedrooms. It's a great house, and I love it, but it sure is pathetic value for money compared to other places.

The streets around my house are narrow and cracked and potholed. They have mysterious lumps and valleys.

The public schools serving my house are dismal swamps. I visited a junior high on business, and it felt like a prison. It was near the end of the school term, and yet students in the computer lab were given 15 minutes to save their projects - and it wasn't enough time.

I pay 8.25% sales tax. I pay 9.3% income tax (on amounts over $37,500!) We pay $.15 a gallon in state gas taxes. My property taxes are ... well, I already told you.

I've heard that in the states of the midwest, there are adequate schools and well-maintained roads, and yet overall taxes are less than half what they are here. And don't even get me started about Texas.

It seems to me that the state should be awash in money, and able to do, as Arnold says, Great Things. We should have gold-plated, microchip-embedded streets that fix themselves for what we're paying.

Now, this doesn't actually seem to be a California thing. If I call the cops here, they might come in half an hour, and they won't respond to alarms. If I call the cops in Newport Beach, they'll show within five minutes. Heck, I saw an auto accident in Costa Mesa, and within five minutes they had three police cars and a tow truck on the scene! Traffic had barely started backing up when it happened.

I have to ask, "Why?" I don't think there's that much income difference between Los Angeles and Orange County, and taxes in the latter are actually lower. Schools in Irvine, a community with a very similar demographic profile to Woodland Hills, are actually good.

So why is it that Los Angeles city services are so awful? Why is it that Los Angeles County - not just the city, the county - is a pothole-wracked mess of bad roads and worse schools?

At the height of the Orange County "bankruptcy", services were still far better than LA County. Now that Orange County is no longer "bankrupt", visible services have rapidly been restored to pre-bankruptcy levels.

LA County has never been bankrupt, and yet they cannot provide even slightly adequate services.

Both LA and Orange County have been affected by Proposition 13. Both have the same state income tax. I even hear that the Democratic state house is a lot less generous with Republican OC than Democratic LA.

Someone's going to mention illegal aliens, but they exist in both places.

So, with all this being said, why are Los Angeles services awful, and what can be done about it?

[daviddennis]

It's a very nice, civilized place. You could argue it's poor value for money, but it's not a s---hole; it's just small. You can buy that kind of property for $350,000 in Canoga Park, a few blocks north of here but miles away culturally and socially.

I would do that because I have a good job that pays me a good income, and I'm terrible at finding work. The house is a pleasant five-minute drive from where I work.

I think my investment's pretty safe, since there is a horrible shortage of entry-level properties here. The shortage is real, and LA is a diversified enough economy so that I don't think that will change. Ironically enough, all the regulations I'm against that make it nearly impossible to build here are now supporting me as a homeowner.

D

[CalKat]

Yeah, but can you walk right outside your door and be on the the beach, like I can? I can watch whales and porpoises and seals from my house. And I can drive for six hours and be in Yosemite, or go skiing in Mammoth. If I only want to drive an hour and half, I can go skiing down here. LA has more restaurants than any city in the US, and they get all the Broadway plays, etc. There's hiking and mountain biking close to anyplace in Southern California. And I think the high today is supposed to be 70 degrees. It doesn't get any better than this.

[Hank Rearden]

You could argue it's poor value for money, but it's not a s---hole; it's just small.

Sorry, my phrasing wasn't clear; I meant Woodland Hills, not your particular house. For that kind of money, the house had better be decent! And for that money, I hope it's near new, too.

Hope it works out for you, but I couldn't stand CA anymore when I left 9 years ago, and it's gotten a lot worse since then. If I didn't have some family still there to visit, I doubt I'd ever set foot in it again; zero desire to do so.

[daviddennis]

Concerning illegals, aren't there plenty of them in Orange County as well as LA County? Why are they affecting LA County's services so much more than OC's? My working hypothesis runs to the pure and simple incompetence of LA County, but I thought it would be interesting to raise the issue.

I think that by using illegal aliens as scapegoats, we are giving incompetent and corrupt officials cover for their exceptionally poor performance. If we say "The poor dears, our hard-working bureaucrats are just beset by illegals", then the "hard-working" bureaucrats aren't going to be taken to task.

Is that not a good point?

Proposition 13 - which I support, just to make things clear - does a lot for people who own property for a long period of time while it's appreciating. It doesn't help me right now because my house gets reassessed to its full value.

I think my property taxes are pretty high in view of the services I get for them. I understaned property taxes elsewhere are higher as a percentage of value, but that's largely compensated for by the cost of property itself. In other words, I have a 1.25% property tax, and other states have 2.5% property tax. But I have a $428,000 home and they have $200,000 homes. So the absolute values are similar.

D

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Question: "Why are Los Angeles services so bad? (Vanity Question)"

Answer: Diversity exhibiting its strength!

[dsc]

Illegals are a part of the problem, but I'll bet they're a small part compared to LA county's black and legal latino population.

[jim_trent]

I can answer part of your question. I read an article in an industry Civil Engineering magazine about 6 months ago that showed what the 50 states collect in transportation taxes and what they spend (per capita, naturally, to allow comparisons). California was at or near the top in collections and was dead last (50th) in expenditures on streets and highways.

I have read other articles that document where the money collected for streets and highways in California is siphoned off on projects that have little or nothing to do with streets and highways. For example: mass transportation, light rail, and restoring an old railroad station for a museum. In recent years, California has not even bothered to try to find a tie between transportation and what they are spending it on, such as a handicap accessible park for gays.

Unfortunately, other states have seen what California is doing and are starting to do the same. When you pay gas taxes and license fees that were supposed to pay for the streets you drive on, that is what it should be spent on. It is not.

[suzyq5558]

WOWSERS.....And here i was griping about a $1600 property tax bill on a $225,000., 2600 sq ft home on 2 acre's!

[Dog Gone]

I can't seem to find a chart for the Houston budget, but it's hardly the model of fiscal sanity. We've had an inept Mayor for the past six years and there are some serious problems in both the police and fire departments.

The interesting thing about the Houston area is that a lot of the suburbs are not in the city, or in any city. They form their own quasi-government for the purpose of putting in sewers, water, and fire protection. Houston doesn't want to annex them because it would mean bringing in Republican voters, and the stupid Rats who run the city government would be out of a job.

The zip code you're looking for is 77019, which basically is the Montrose area of Houston. It's definitely the musician, art, and gay area of town. It's very lively and definitely is a cultural center, unlike the suburbs which are much more bland.

[marsh2]

I can't address the quality of services, but I can throw some light on County budgets. There are different "pots" of revenue and most are earmarked on the federal and State level or by the voters through initiative for specific purposes and can be spent for no other.

Human Services, Public Health and Behavioral (Mental) Health are funded as entitlement programs initiated and largely funded by the federal government. The State also provides a large revenue match and the County provides a smaller match from its general fund. The County administers the program, so the whole amount is shown in the the pie chart as an allocation, even though most of the revenue stream actually comes from the State and the feds.

Transportation is funded from the earmarked pots of the gas taxes, Prop. 42 and a sort of federal in lieu of taxes amount that replaced the timber tax in rural areas. Prop. 42 funds have been pillage by the State before and are proposed to be pillaged again in the current budget. Funds for roads are being diminished on the local level. http://www.calvoter.org/2002/primary/propositions/42.html

The County General Fund pays for administration services like the tax collector, auditor, assessor, recorder, clerk. Usually, service fees help support planning and building departments. A large part of the general fund goes to the sheriff, jail, probabtion and D.A. The General fund revenue is largely property tax, sales tax, VLF and the various subventions paid by the State when it plays shell games with the VLF, Williamson Act and others. http://www.sco.ca.gov/ard/payments/vlfrealign/1103.pdf

In our County, the county currently recieves only about 23% of the property taxes. The rest are diverted elsewhere through shell games like ERAF http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:BokgNnF5MtkJ:www.californiacityfinance.com/ERAF_facts.pdf+ERAF&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
which divert County and special district revenue to satisfy the State's obligation to the schools under Prop. 98. (The Gov. is proposing to take even more in the current budget. http://www.csac.counties.org/feature.html) Propert taxes currently account for about 26% of our General Fund. VLF is about 24% and subventions or backfill for Williamson Act (open space tax breaks) amounts to about 17%. http://www.csac.counties.org/legislation/williamson_act/wa_fact_sheet.pdf

Another technique of the State is called realignment. This is where they "devolve" greater and greater responsibility for State and federal social services programs to the County, while cutting the amount of money to implement the program.

It is as if the State was an invading hoard approaching the gates each year (sometimes more frequently) to pillage - lol.

[ArmstedFragg]

>> Thoughts? <<

Obviously there's a plethora of issues, but here's one.

Municipal government is inherently inefficient. The larger the entity, the more layers of bureaucracy there are, and the more isolated the "civil servants" become from the public they serve. The result is lack of responsiveness and major inefficiencies.

If you're over in the east valley some time and want to see a graphic example, drive down Magnolia Blvd from North Hollywood into the city of Burbank. The pot-holed L.A. road suddenly becomes well-maintained at the city limit.

There's another equally funny example on Clybourn street just north of Riverside drive. The city limit runs right down the middle of the street and, sure enough, the west side is a mess while the east side is in good repair.

I'm currently living in a medium sized town in San Diego county. The administration and much of the staff is Republican. A month ago, I had occasion to contact the city regarding a maintenance issue. There was an E-mail response within hours and the problem was solved the next day.

I'd contrast this with an experience I had in obtaining a legal document in L.A. County. I spent two hours and visited four different offices in three different buildings. The reason? There are multiple offices for each general issue, and no process by which a citizen can determine which office handles a specific issue. You go to the most likely office and are required to fill out a form and wait in line before you can ask whether you're in the right place or not. Upon discovering you're not in the right place, you find that you're dealing with an employee who doesn't think its part of his/her job to tell you where the right place is. Truly maddening.

There's a powerful motivating factor in knowing that the chances are fairly high that the average citizen knows someone who can fire your ass. It has an impact on civic employees in medium sized communities. It's missing in the big city.

And... for what it's worth... your taxes may be high now, but thanks to Prop. 13, later buyers will be paying a higher share of the bills than you do a few years from now. If you live to be about two hundred you'll be getting the level of service you're paying for.

[AngrySpud]

I guess you gotta go where the jobs are, but is it worth it staying there? Life could be simpler and easier elsewhere. Your salaries can't possibly compensate for the high cost of living in California.

Dang ... in my neck o' the woods you could get a very nice (new) comparably-sized home for $110K. With a yard, no less.

[HitmanLV]

The riddle that has plauged me over the years is that my radio breaks everytime I enter LA City limits.

Here in Las Vegas it works fine. On I-15, It works fine.

I get to LA city limits, and all I get is Spanish stations...

[Traction]

Graft is siphoning off the funds. LA city is controlled by the Democratic Party (read organized crime) which also owns the only newspaper (LA slimes). Public service money is given away to cronies of the various public officials (Senator W in C*rs*n gets her friends appointed to various service heads in her district that can't even read or write but control the crime elements on the street). Road contracts are issued for ease of job instead of where needed because kickbacks. Ill-conceived public works projects for image sake of politics. LA Police (which I used to regard as some of the best) have given up as the legal services are stacked against maintaining law or order since the corruption is coming from the top down. There are few fighting it, very few but they get threaten, forced to resign or thumped if they get to close to the truth (known a few).

You are also in the Valley, which gets a meager portion of the funds slated for the City. Since you are newbie to the Valley, there has been an ongoing range war between the interests of the Valley and Downtown. Each year, the city gives the valley less even though the valley taxes contribute more and more to the coffers than does central LA. The separation issue now comes up every two years and I would not be surprised that the Valley separates itself from LA within ten years (it would have already if it hadn't been for the large hispanic vote on the north side).

LA will continue to be a sewer as long as it has only one newspaper that is more interested in defeating national Republicans than reporting local politics. You'll find that communities that have better services will have local papers that concentrate on their own communities (Pasadena, Monrovia, etc.) which do not exist for central LA or the Valley. The daily News tries but it has become too large to give the local community coverage that is needed. When it was the Green sheet, the Valley was a nice place to live; now the ghetto portion has expanded from side to side of it.

Since you are now stuck in the middle of the wasteland, learn to live with it (I lived there once also). In a couple of years, you'll discover the smaller canyon communities that ring the valley have nice hideaways while still offering reasonable commute times. You can then escape the flat lands for one of these.

Should have asked on FR before making the move. Some of us would have clued you in on where to look.

[Chuzzlewit]

I am sick, sick , sick of this place.. If my kids weren't located out here (divorced father of 2 girls), I would leave in a nano-second..

It's too bad, because it has such great potential, and it used to be such a fantastic place.. -- Southern California.

[steplock]

The beach? You call that ice bucket on the california coast a beach? I lived in San Clemente (next door to Tricky Dicky) and as far north as Pacific Grove then Carmel.

You aint seen a beach until you've seen Playa Varadero. Unfortunately, you won't either as long as Castro is still there.

Ruskie web site picture:

[CalKat]

When I was a kid we used to go camping in San Clemente and Tricky Dick used to fly over in his helicopter on the way to his house there. I remember all the teenagers on the beach used to give him the finger.

But hey, you can't knock Laguna Beach. It's beautiful here. They have built a bunch of "mansions" in North Laguna that I don't like, but I live down past the hospital where all the old houses are. I used to live in Dana Point, Huntington Beach, Shell Beach and Hermosa Beach, and I like it here the best.

I don't think I'll ever get to Cuba, but I've been to beautiful beaches in Tahiti, and I'm going to Hawaii in May. I love Carmel too.

[truth_seeker]

"This question has bothered me for many decades, but it seems particularly apropos as I settle into my house and start paying property taxes."

Bothered you for decades? It apparently hasn't bothered you ENOUGH to deter you from purchasing property there.

Why didn't you purchase in adjacent Orange County, where you yourself indicate services are better? Ditto Ventura County? Thousand Oaks?

Part of your problem is being in the incorporated city of Los Angeles, even though they call your section "Woodland Hills."

An old real estate adage: Buy the worst house, in the best area you can afford. Lotsa people get hung up on the building, overlooking the area.

What happened to Agoura Hills in your decision?

Me - Huntington Beach, California

[daviddennis]

The company I work for, which I have a long-term, stable relationship with, is in Woodland Hills. I don't like commuting.

The part of Woodland Hills I moved into is beautiful - much nicer than other affordable areas of the city. I considered Thousand Oaks but didn't like the commute and prefer the architecture of the 60s to the more recent, minimal-cost-driven architecture of Ventura County.

If I could start over again, I would have done it in Orange County instead. There's no question Orange County is a lot better run than LA. The worst negative is the culture of homeowners' associations and identical homes everywhere.

I'm happy with my decision to move, and my decision to buy into this area. At the same time, I'd like to know if there are any things I can do to make a difference regarding the problems with my local government. We can all throw up our hands and say it's impossible ... but I'd rather try and figure out something constructive.

D

[daviddennis]

I actually live in one of the canyon communities - Woodland Hills, South of the Boulevard, high up in the hills. The big reason I didn't buy a house before now is that I didn't think I could afford a house on the hills, and I didn't want to commit to staying in the flats.

I love my neighborhood and community, but I think everyone here resents that we pay through the nose for bad city services. "It's a miracle we get trash collected up here," says one of my neighbors.

Speaking of living up in the hills ...

Road contracts are issued for ease of job instead of where needed because kickbacks. Ill-conceived public works projects for image sake of politics.

Of course this means our hillside roads will never be fixed, since they would cost genuine bucks to repair.

I really wonder why anyone in the Valley voted against the Valley Secession measure. I am not new to the Valley - I'm just new to owning a home. I rented for three and a half years in the flats, about a mile or two from where I live now. So I researched the secession measure and voted for it.

I can understand why people outside of the Valley voted to keep Valley money in the city, but it seems so much in the self interest of all Valley residents to have a Valley city that it puzzles me the measure did so badly. (If my memory serves, it didn't get a majority in the Valley and of course it was murdered in the city as a whole).

My main problem with that measure is that I feel even the Valley city is too unwieldy. I think each individual label (Woodland Hills, North Hills, etc) should be a city of its own. Only that way can we have government even close to being responsive.

I read the LA Weekly articles on Valley Successsion, and they had all sorts of blather about it being better for us to fight problems together than separately, but no defense of the quality of services anywhere in LA City. Personally, I think all parts of LA city would find succession an improvement, since LA City proper would also have to find ways to work more efficiently.

It doesn't matter how much money government has, it's how it's used that counts. My snap judgement, for a long time, has been that LA City/County has plenty of money, it simply doesn't deploy it properly.

I think the current system may serve union bus drivers well, and union trash collectors, and city employees reasonably well, but I think it serves the public horribly.

I'd like to figure out some way to initiate change in that regard. Perhaps we can work together as freepers to help with the situation?

D