Elephant in the District

9/22/22 - https://easyreadernews.com/letters-to- the-editor-9-22-22/

Dear ER:

On September 14, we witnessed everything that’s wrong with Special Districts in a single meeting of the Los Angeles Local Area Formation Commission. LAFCO unanimously approved BCHD’s municipal service review without requiring BCHD to demonstrate that its proposed building expansion to 800,000 sq. ft. has any benefits to the residents of the District. The Healthy Living Campus expansion is being done for the benefit of 80 percent to 95 percent non-residents, requires a $200,000 annual income in retirement to pay senior housing rent and includes 1.3 million non-residents, all being served on the backs of the taxpayers of Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan Beach. The state’s Little Hoover Commission wrote a long report highlighting out of control districts. Like BCHD, most have perpetual tax money because we voters in 1955 didn’t put a sunset provision in the vote to build a hospital.

For the want of one phrase, such as, “In the event the hospital fails, tax funding immediately ceases,” special districts are taxpayer cash looking for a cause. Little Hoover was right, Special Districts are a train wreck. What Little Hoover missed was that LAFCO’s (every county has one) may be the engineers.

Mark Nelson

Redondo Beach