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'Sacrificed Its Soul at the Altar of Capitalism': The US Town That Outsourced Everything
The authorities in Maywood decided on a drastic approach to their budget deficit – sack every municipal worker
MAYWOOD, California -- When two uniformed police officers approached Hector Hernandez as he arrived at the City of Maywood's official Fourth of July celebrations, he feared the worst. The stocky 22-year-old - whose neck tattoo of a Playboy bunny indicates membership of one of the area's notorious Latino street gangs - hasn't exactly relished his previous interactions with the local forces of law and order. Imagine Hector's surprise, then, when the uniformed men held out an outstretched hand, smiled and asked how he was doing. "They said they were new to the neighbourhood, so wanted to say hello and welcome me to the event. I think they even told me to have a nice day," he recalls. "I was like: 'You guys don't normally speak to me unless you're kneeling on my back'. I thought it was some kind of a sting."
Sgt. Enrique Gonzalez is overcome with emotion as he hands over his police badge (AP) But it wasn't. Instead, Hector was being introduced to a brave new era in the life of Maywood.
Over the last few years, the local government in this tiny, blue-collar town about 20 minutes drive from downtown Los Angeles drifted towards bankruptcy. Poverty, gang violence and inner-city deprivation were spiralling. Then last month - in a move that made it instantly famous - Maywood's cash-strapped city council decided to respond to its myriad problems with a revolutionary initiative: it voted to contract out every single public service the city once provided, from the management of parks and libraries, to the book-keeping at City Hall, to the running of its police department.
Today, Maywood is America's (and possibly the world's) first completely outsourced city. Where other local authorities might privatise their traffic wardens or binmen, Maywood's council has gone the whole hog: sacking everyone from school crossing guards and parking wardens, to street maintenance workers, park wardens, librarians and even the clerical staff in city hall. The number of people it now has on its payroll?
A big, fat zero.
In the purge of city employees, which happened at the end of June, about 60 people lost their jobs. Most of those redundancies hit the scandal-ridden police department. In the previous five years, it had had to settle around 30 misconduct lawsuits, for alleged offences ranging from civil rights violations to rape by officers to unlawful killing, with compensation totalling $20m - double the entire city's annual budget.
In their place came the friendly cops that warmly greeted Hector on 4 July. They are members of the LA County Sheriff's Department, which agreed to be paid roughly $4m a year to patrol Maywood's streets, a figure significantly lower than the previous police budget, even before you factor its lawsuits into consideration.
Despite the public money it saved, the outsourcing project was highly controversial. When it was announced, residents feared anarchy would follow; old people thought they would be mugged in the streets; local storekeepers wondered if anyone who would stop them from being robbed; families presumed parks and libraries would close. "You have single-handedly destroyed this city," the about-to-be-sacked city treasurer told council members, during the acrimonious meeting where the outsourcing scheme was unveiled.
One month on, however, the naysayers have gone quiet. Maywood's parks are still open and greener than ever. The leisure centre is overflowing with excited children. City Hall appears to be running smoothly. And almost everyone you meet says that since the city outsourced everything, services have improved and petty crime and gang violence have - on the surface, at least - virtually disappeared.
"I don't see gangsters on the streets any more," said Maria Garciaparra, bringing her children to the library. "I don't see new graffiti. I still have a park for them to play in and this place to get books, so who cares whether the city employs anyone or not? If this works, then down the line, I'm sure plenty of other places will copy it."
Today, depending on your point of view, Maywood represents either a shining example of civic creativity, whose unique experiment in governance should be copied by recession-strapped local governments across the land or a reckless and foolhardy city that has been betrayed by leaders who have sacrificed its soul at the altar of capitalism - and will soon suffer the inevitable consequences.
In the former camp, perhaps naturally, is Aldo Perez, Maywood's new director of Parks and Recreation. He is actually employed by the neighbouring city of Bell, which is now paid to handle Maywood's records management, finances and human resources, under a monthly contract.
The city was previously so dreadful at running its own affairs that he believes locals could only have enjoyed tangible improvements from the great outsourcing.
"When it was first announced, people said that the sky was going to fall and that everything would just stop," he said, while chalking white lines on a baseball field. "In fact, we are busier than ever. For the first time in history, we are running free swimming lessons and they're completely booked up. We had 400 people here on 4 July for baseball and children's activities. Believe me - by outsourcing, we are actually providing people with a better service."
Also singing the new regime's praises is the Maywood's city spokeswoman Magdalena Prado (who also works under contract). She argues, correctly, that the vast majority of locals don't care who cleans their streets, or fights crime, or runs the library - provided the job is getting done. And by any measure, she says, those things have so far improved.
"We are the first city to do this and it's a revolutionary idea," she says. "So while we wouldn't want to be copied by other cities - and used as a model by people who want to lay off employees - I would think that if you speak to the vast majority of people in Maywood, you'll find that they're pretty pleased with the way things are working out."
Being pleased has historically been a rare state of mind in Maywood, a densely-populated industrial city founded in 1924, which measures just a mile and a half across and where employment in traditional industries has declined heavily in recent decades, causing the white middle class to be replaced by migrants. The city's population is officially 30,000, with 95 per cent having Spanish as their first language. In fact, because of illegal immigration, the number of people living in Maywood might be as much as 50 per cent higher.
Like many other hard-scrabble communities, Maywood's local politics have for years been mired in acrimony and corruption. Four years ago, the town made headlines when a clerk, Hector Duarte, was sentenced to a year in jail for soliciting a hitman to kill a council worker who was proposing cutbacks that might have axed his job.
As tax revenues have fallen and demand for services increased during the recent economic slump, Maywood was forced to confront another tough reality - it could no longer afford to subsidise a failing police department which according to a state investigation was: "permeated with sexual innuendo, harassment, vulgarity, discourtesy to members of the public as well as among officers, and a lack of cultural, racial and ethnic sensitivity and respect".
This year, Maywood's insurance provider came to the same conclusion. It cancelled the city's public liability coverage, saying it could no longer afford to pay compensation claims related to police misconduct. Despite an extensive search, no affordable alternative provider could be found. As a result, the council says the outsourcing all of its employees to outside governments and administrations was forced upon it.
"We had no alternative, because without insurance you cannot employ people," is how councillor Fellipe Aguirre puts it. "Am I happy with what happened? Well, at present, people are getting better services and we are saving money. So yes. Will people copy us? Who knows? We are a unique city with unique problems. But I think so far, what we have done is a success."
The future may be a different matter, though. Last week, the city of Bell found itself at the centre of a snowballing corruption scandal of its own. A report by the Los Angeles Times revealed that the city's council members had fiddled the rules to pay themselves salaries of over $100,000 a year, for part time jobs. The city's manager was earning $800,000; its head of police $400,000.
California's attorney general is currently investigating whether criminal charges should be brought against Bell's government. Three senior employees have already been forced to resign and pictures of angry crowds protesting on the streets have made the national news. To the citizens of Maywood, who now find their tax dollars going to this scandal-hit administration, it's a reminder that, whatever the circumstances, you enter the cut-throat realm of the free market at your peril.
- Posted in
59 Comments so far
Show AllFor additional perspective on this kind of privatization, read the chapter in Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" called "Disaster Apartheid."
I will check it out, FastEddie.
They say the town has no employees, but who is administering the contracts? A contractor for contract administration? the who is admisitering the contracts for contract administration?
Contracting out government services rarely saves money, and in those cases it is because the contractor replaces union workers with minimum or or sub-minimum wage labor.
And this article is a little dishonest - the examples of the supposedly contracted-out work is being done by adjacent municipalities - not an Ayn Randian paradise.
this is where I should have put my post, since I pretty much said the same thing except that I had spit flying out of my mouth.
can't believe i just read something more suitable for fox news than CD just now. And the taste is oh so bad.
Old-school hack politicians like Ed Rendell really get behind "quick cash" schemes like this, e.g. unsuccessfully trying to sell off the historic Pennsylvania Turnpike to the highest low-bidder.
I guess Rendell is one of the remaining "New Deal" Democrats, but by the time he moved from mayor to governor, the "New" had long since worn off.
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on him-- after all, even a "Deal" Democrat can't pay for government entirely by means of state lotteries and gambling revenues.
And Rendell is going to look like a socialist man-of-the-working poeple when Tom Corbett takes over.
I just got back from the northern Tier counties. Potter County are starting to look like Venezuelan oil field in the pre-nationalization days. Rich Texan Oil-men everywhere going from town to town in their helicopters, while Pennsylvanians clean their rooms, cook their meals and wait on their tables for minimum or sub-minimum wage. These are those great jobs that the 'ol Marcellus Shale boys will bring us - if we promise not to tax them or their gas.
It's going to be like the Pennsylvania in the old TV mini-series "Captains and the Kings all over again. Maybe they will even get rid of dam safety regulations so we can have another Johnstown or Austinville for their fishing pleasure.
Hold your nose and try to send our illustrious Democrat county executive to Harrisburg this November.
It feels as though Rod Serling will emerge from behind a minimart, cigarette between fingers and say, "Submitted for your approval........."
Submitted for your approval.........Maywood, with population of over 30,000, a tiny, blue-collar town, the first municipality to dismantle its police department, lay off all city employees, except for the city manager, city attorney and elected officials who's said officials now enjoy all the benefits but much less of the responsibilities of actually running a town.
Maywood, a place rushing headlong through the 21st century embracing what they call outsourcing, all apparently because the town was going broke. A small town representing either a shining example of civic creativity or a reckless and foolhardy city that has been betrayed by leaders who have sacrificed its soul at the altar of capitalism - and will soon suffer the inevitable consequences in.....the Twilight Zone.
OBT :)
Could not have said it better myself.
Yep, that good old free market. I had a similar discussion with a friend of mine, who insisted taxes would go way down when government entities are outsourced. Great, I said. Hire out the park department. A company comes in at, say, $1.5 million a year to run the pools, park facilities, programs, etc. Say this knocks some $850,000.00 off the budget. Two years later, bidding opens up, and the low bid is now $3 million. Oops. What do you do? go back and re-create the public park sector? Raise taxes? Ask for community volunteers? Nope. The easiest remedy would be to close the park facilities. Now all you need is a landscaper to cut the grass, a contractor to fill in the pools and tear out the tennis courts...There's no free lunch, and there's no free market.
Here. Take a sniff of this. Go ahead - it's free - won't cost you a thing. If you like it I could come back tomorrow - still free. No obligation. But if you want me to come back after that I'm going to have to ask for a small, shall we say, service charge.
Deal?
Atta boy.
It sounds to me like the real issue was not that it was costing the city too much to run itself, but that it's police force was so corrupt and acted so illegally that the resulting lawsuits were bankrupting the town. So it seems to me that they probably could have dealt with the whole thing by firing the cops and getting a far less corrupt and law breaking group of people.
Sooner or later, this will come back to haunt them. It's damn near a guarantee. Sure, things are great right now, since it's all brand new. But give it time, and the companies who are now the essential OWNERS of this town will decide that it's too expensive to keep paying for those workers, not enough PROFIT, and those things will be cut back.
Then, there is the problem with contracting with what is apparently the single most corrupt city gov't in the country, Bell. I still find it amazing that the city manager there talks about how much he's saved the city, while taking out nearly a million from the budget HIMSELF. Sorry, but public service is NOT something that you are supposed to get rich off of.
Then, of course, there is the profit motive itself. Take something that is usually done for about 3% overhead and tack on another 27% for the profit motive. Then tell me that you will get the same services you got at the 3%. It's just NOT possible. It's never worked before, I see no reason why this should work now.
The shit IS going to hit the fan, sooner or later. It's the way things go when you sell yourself out to corporations. Ask the American worker who expected the corporations to treat them fairly for the last 30 years how well it's worked out for them.
this article hacks me off. this isn't "outsourcing" in the traditional sense. Most of the new providers are *themselves* public agencies, so how can this be an exercise in capitalism? yeah, it works well, because it's not corporate! what the f*ck!
and now that these other public agencies have been able to put a "for hire" sign up, what the heck is that going to do to their services down the road?
The events described sound much more like a government takeover of a, well, failed government.
I gotta stop typing before I throw something.
Exactly, the surrounding towns are just taking over local services which the town itself cannot afford. Nothing new, it's more like a municipal merger than anything with a vestige of town council direction.
And I'm sure the LA County Sherrif's Department has more experience dealing with gang members than a small town with a corrupt police force.
The point that people seem to miss is this:
Stable jobs at a livable wage and decent benefits, as provided by government employment, arguably form the nucleus of America's Middle Class.
A Middle Class is important for many reasons, but of particular benefit are the "emergent" properties we all gain from a Middle Class. One of the primary benefits is that a solid middle class allows for the construction and maintenance of market structures which allows the entire society to benefit from copious "Consumer Surplus". This "Consumer Surplus" raises the quality of life in general and contributes greatly to the robustness and resiliency of our society.
The benefits that society derives, as a whole, from the government expenditures for labor are far in excess of the price paid. Destroy the core of the Middle Class (for perceived immediate financial benefit)and we all suffer.
The middle class is really an ideological obfuscation which serves to mask the overwhelming majority of those who have nothing other than their intellectual or manual labour power to sell to owners of capital in exchange for a wage (slave). This is the fundemental social relation of capitalism wage slave/owner of capital. Putting class under erasure has been the preoccupation of the chattering classes since the red scare of 1917. All of that intellectual labour has born fruit. Unions are blamed for the economic collapse socialism doesn't work, capitalism is the most democratic, better dead than red, ad hominem. Now America is getting ready to overthrow (again) Chavez in Venezuela. Of course the pretext will be support of terrorist or drug lords or some other such nonsense but it is an extension of the class war that has pretty well broken the back of labour up here. Breaking the Air Controllers Strike was the beginning of this last campaign in the ongoing war that lead us to where we are today. Morally, physically and mentally bankrupt. The good news is that it is all starting to unravel thanks to wikileaks. Maybe this is our wedge, our spear, our opportunity to call a halt to the war on the working class and actually make some advances. They can't account for 8.9 billion in Iraq? How much can't they account for on Wall Street? How much at the Pentagon-25% isn't that what Rumsfield said the day before 9/11 opened the door to the plunder? We need more wikileaks since the press is NOT doing it's job. Maybe then our disorientated tea-baggers will come to see where their true interests lie-and it is not with the capitalist state either.
Many cities don't have a county sheriff's department to outsource to. In Maywood's case, the new police are still paid as public servants. Actually privatizing a city's police would always be problematic because the police sometimes have to take courageous risks in the line of duty. A private employer and its hires would typically do well in handing out traffic tickets but would run the other way when confronted with a public emergency.
Actually, let me amend that. My local city once privatized its meter maids. I parked down at the police station at a 30 minute spot, where the checking began at 8:00 a.m. At exactly 8:20 I found a ticket for overtime parking. The meter maid had written 8:40 on the ticket. I immediately marched into the police station demanding to know how a dishonest time could have been written on the ticket. The desk sergeant said he'd fix the ticket. Apparently lots of other fraudulent parking tickets were being written because of their employee incentive plan, and the crooked private company was eventually cashiered.
Turning over public administration of the city to the bunch of utter crooks at City of Bell, California is also problematic.
The City of Maywood may actually do well with privatization. The first pig or cow entering the slaughterhouse chute is pushed into a container at the front end of the chute. All of the other pigs follow the first pig in, thinking the coast is clear because the first pig is ok, and they all are slaughtered. In Maywood's case, smart businesses will take a strategic loss on the City of Maywood in order to draw dozens of other pigs in. That's how capitalism works.
Sorry to be a bit pedantic but it's "than" not "then" in "it takes more courage to be a citizen during a traffic stop, then it takes to be a god-ego cop", or in "more unarmed citizens are killed by police, then are the citizens". However, I do agree with your point.
the police sometimes have to take courageous risks in the line of duty
---------------------------------
Rarely. Very rarely.
There are about 800K cops, and about 145 die each year (I think that's the figure for all causes). So over a 20-year pensionable career, the cop only has to stay out of a tiny cohort: 3000 cops (20 x 145). Three thousand deaths in a pop of 800K means a cop's chance of collecting his/her pension is better than 99% (3/800). A virtual certainty, in other words.
Which is why cops should be sacked and blackballed, not protected, if they get out of line.
(edit: fixed my dyscalculia-mediated error)
Maywood is just a hole! a blight in the middle of a once functioning area. All the busniesses are long gone and the streets are rolled up at night. In a way it may be the future of Americas city's. Broke, Broken and disorginized, with a few self important fools at city hall working to figure out how to skim the last of any money left and get out quick!
So the money's gone and the County has moved in to continue services, So what, LA Countys nearly broke itself! Just try to find a private Company greedy/dumb enough to take over. It's way more trouble than it's worth.
>^^<
Very interesting.
Assuming that the facts are accurately reported, what do we learn from this?
1. Government is always the problem...?
2. The private sector is the solution to everything...?
I suspect not many CDers are ready to accept these conclusions. I don't accept them either, although I suspect the truth does include some related statements one could make:
1. Corruption (including the kind that may occur in municipal governments) is always a problem...
2. The ability to choose services (whether from private providers or from public providers) often helps in solving things...
Aparently in the case of this unfortunate city in California, the political corruption must have been very high, and must have resulted in a government that utterly failed to serve its citizens.
These citizens found solace when empowered to choose among other providers, outside of town, of needed services. If officials in the city of Bell prove to be as corrupt as their own, then next year they can contract with another city where things are a little cleaner. Yes, there is power in the freedom to choose. We shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that.
To me the lesson is not that government is the problem, but that a healthy democracy with vigorous citizen participation is an essential ingredient in good governance. Once you have a healthy democracy in place, it will tend to be more practical to have the services provided by the public sector, so that one can avoid the profit overhead that others have mentioned.
This was a thought-provoking article. Thanks CD.
Garbage collectors in San Francisco make close to $ 80,000 a year with benefits. Pretty good for "dummies" with High School educations.They have an effective union.The Japanese Greater South East Co-Prosperity Sphere was a hoot.I don't think they were white.
They weren't white but they were following some good examples set by white nations England, France, Netherlands and many others who went there before them.
You do know that Japans first attempt to take over Korea was in like 400 AD right . Or will you keep assuming all the non white people of the world were peaceful and kind to each other , before the Europeans taught them how to wage war .
Troll.
Empire,
You keep carping about the 51% of the most wealthy and agressive ruling the citizens of the US. I submit that is total crap. I am in the 51% you keep ripping on, yet, I thirst for social justice and an end to the corporate hegemony that has ruined this nation. There are plenty of poor, dim bulbs out there that enthusiatically enable and support those very ideals that have brought this country to it's knees. Wealth and intelligence have very little to do with morals. I will thank you in advance for excluding me from your 51% of America are bad, scary, smart, rich, people runing your life garbage.
Your comments reveal you to be one of the dimmest commenters hanging around this site. You actually believe there are 51% of Americans who are super smart and aggressively educated, who vote, and they're beating down the 49% who are just plain folk, don't vote, not especially bright, but good people who must suffer the insults and slavery of the dominant 51%? This is among the dumbest theories anyone could ever devise.
Your simple-minded notions of how laws are made and enforced is similarly patterned by dumb cluck statistics you've dreamed up to explain how inequality works. Everyone in the middle class is "stuck-up" and "self-absorbed" and super educated, but not as much as the country club set or "high society"? And only the downtrodden know anything about manual labor? Maybe if you learn the difference between "to" and "too", or that there is a difference, U2 can enter the hallowed halls of the super smart and stuck-up educated. But then you'd be cast out of the realms of LIGHT and TRUTH, and who would want that, so better for you to stay as dumb and righteous as you are.
stupid americans. You have a corrupt city govt and police dept....so then you hand it over to private corporations? idiots.
it's called democracy. so the people fix the corrupt govt. You don't instead hand it over to a a system that denies all democracy.
oh.....less crime. Yes, please give us fascism. So those of YOU that can still pay mortages and still have jobs......can have your safe little parks.
class war....class war...class war....
general strikes....organize organize..
Empire_USA
"For the white European race by nature is most most aggressive and power hungry."
I had intended to reply to your specious criticism of my post (and other posts), but almost immediately realized that you're a racist.
So instead I'll simply ask you to take yourself and your racism somewhere else.
If you're ever able to overcome your racism, come on back and we'll talk.
he sounds suspiciously like our old friend Truth_is _light or whatever he called himself
the same ridiculous obsession with factoids
He does indeed. But some one has to carry the torch for humor.By the way, lots of unincorporated towns in California have been 'outsourcing' cops and libraries and parks for years. It's called County Government and it's no big deal.Most of West Marin in unincorporated. Every now and then the Highway Patrol drives by.They're not working for G E or Dyncorp.
Who knows? I've only heard them comment on your opinions, not on anything resembling the truth.
Anyone who starts with the premise that their views are the truth is being disingenuous if they suggest they're interested in debate.
Oh, fuck. Rudolf Hess a 'great reformer'? Tell me you're not calling a Nazi thug who was also a deserter a 'great reformer'. Lie if you have to. If you do think that a man like him was in any way 'great' go back to Stormfront, or whatever the neonazis are calling themselves these days.
Replacing Maywood's corrupt police department with the LA County Sheriff's Department is not an example of traditional outsourcing. The misleading title suggests a capitalistic corporate sector takeover.
I agree, this looks more like an amalgamation rather than outsourcing. And it looks like out of the frying pan and into the fire with the Bell Group. I live in Canada and have heard nothing but bad regarding the LA County Sheriff's Dept. Perhaps they should make all public service workers bi-lingual, So much of the American south and south west was Spanish at one time and hasn't changed much or changed back to it's previous population base. I am sure alot of talent goes untapped due to the English only conception of America as a White Anglo Saxon community.
Exactly, read the article. They didn't outsource to corporations. They don't have Raytheon or Halliburton running anything. They are using Sheriffs and other municipality workers.
I wish my city would fire our police department (good old boy club), and use the sheriffs instead. They actually treat us with respect in the outlying rural areas, the city Police are all about harassment and intimidation.
In the Amerikan Imperium, the Quintessential Small Town-- Mayberry, RFD-- has been replaced by Maywood, RQS*.
* Reduced for Quick Sale
What do we have to lose here? I say check back in 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. I suggest that Guy Adams keep in touch and report back on a regular basis.
Some might recall that Iraq was to be the "shining city on the hill". Virtually all Iraqi businesses were terminated and farmed out to the highest bidders. Remember? So we can take a look today and see how the grand experiment has worked out. Here is a chance to do our own research and answer the question here and now.
But let us also hear from Guy Adams again. What do you say?
It all sounds so surreal.
Doesn't explain how they came up with the money to pay private companies when they didn't have money to pay their own payroll.
Do the privatized operations work for free?
The money came from getting rid of people that made a reasonable wage to support their families. I doubt if the new folks that are doing all of those jobs, except for the county police, are making anywhere near the wages the previous employees were paid. Also, the new hires probably do not have very many, if any, benefits provided to them.
Exactly. That's how the surplus and necessary profits are made. As the economic house of cards topples, people are turning their ire towards those still making a decent living instead of asking why so many people are being discarded while the stock market sits fat and happy. The road to poverty is paved with cost savings and accountants.
Well, it appears that there are few ideas about Iraq, the land of the totally free market and the neocon's dream come true in terms of opportunity to practice laissez-fare without any interference whatsoever.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Iraq-Today-Afflicted-by-V-by-Stephen-Lendman-100427-174.html - a few quotes follow:
Seven years under occupation, Iraqis still cope with what Refugees International calls "a dire humanitarian crisis that sees huge numbers of displaced (and other Iraqis) struggl(ing) to survive,"
Essential services are spotty or nonexistent, and persistent depravation on October 11, 2009 got Iraqis in Baghdad streets to chant, "No water, no electricity in the country of oil and the two rivers," according to AP.
Cancer is another issue, the result of "more than 1,700 tons of depleted uranium" used during the war and invasion besides more during the Gulf War. "Literally every local person I've spoken with....during my nine months (in the country) knows someone who either suffers from or has died of cancer."
Tigris and Euphrates river waters are contaminated and unsafe. According to Dr. Ibrahim Ali, a Baghdad laboratory owner, "It is definitely not good for human consumption, and every time we analyze it we find something new that might, in time, cause death. Various kinds of bacterial pollution and germs we are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So maybe someone from Maywood could give them a hand.
In a democracy not drugged by its bought-and-paid-for media, a self-serving politician could not survive. If bad politicians could not survive, the democratic process would perform just fine in dealing with society's needs. It's really that simple. Once the people are forced to wake up to the thievery of their keepers, they have two choices: Change it by whatever means necessary, or surrender... BUT...
In the continuously more complex inter-relationships of our changing world, consolidation (not outsourcing) of services is an evolutionary requirement. The KEY to success is to keep unbridled capitalism out of government. It is the cancer of democracy.
If I were a citizen of Maywood, the first thing I would do is ferociously attack the local media and political leaders for sucking the health out of their community. Make them writhe. Sue them. Demean them. Boycott them. Force them to leave. DON’T LET THEM OFF THE HOOK!
Maybe their successors will get the message.
Or, people of Maywood, lay down. What TRULY needs to be addressed, has not yet been dealt with. You've simply hired different wolves to care for you.
No only the worker bees got the axe! The profiteers, the Council @ $100.000 a pop. the former Mayor/Gov @ $800.000 and the Police Chief @ $400.000 are fine.
In fact I hear the Mayor and Police chief are retireing, for the Mayor that $600.000 and the Police Chief $500.000 They should be strung up!
But in Ca they'll be made Governor and Head of CDCR... sad
>^^<
Privatizing our democracy and Constitution would be conservatism's wet dream...things in America are getting truly Orwellian...soon conservatives will work on privatizing Congress and the courts so in the future we'll say remember when we had a Constitution? Well it's been outsourced.
"Believe me - by outsourcing, we are actually providing people with a better service."
Let's see how long it lasts before it is no longer cost effective. That will be the true test of its worthiness.
As another commenter said 'where is the money coming from?' Sounds idyllic but out sourcing or privatizing financially begins on the cheap but continues to catch up on commensurate costs.
The whole article is whacky because is does not address the funding. I wonder who's idea this is. Being next to to Bell, CA. it doesn't sound promising.
""""Maywood's cash-strapped city council decided to respond to its myriad problems with a revolutionary initiative: it voted to contract out every single public service the city once provided, from the management of parks and libraries, to the book-keeping at City Hall, to the running of its police department.""""
It appears the city council will remain intact and with a city council 'managing' the privatization, well, just wait and see.
Fuck, you are a racist sack of rat vomit aren't you.
1) sorta true, but not the whole story. Not surprising tho, I've met the likes of you before.
(2) lie. Slavery was practised long before Europe was even close to being 'civilized'.
(3) lie. again, who do you think first colonized the Middle East? I'll give you a hint, they weren't white. Neither were the first peoples who colonized Europe, the mutation that led to white skin happened after they got there.
4) Now this is a surprise, usually white supremacists don't consider the Jews to be 'white men'...
5,6,7) and that is something to be 'proud' of is it?
You quoted Hess above. If you are not a bigot I'll apologize. But given what you've written here, I don't think I'll be apologizing at all.