Mr. Fleischman poses an interesting question in his post two below, specifically: Is there any statewide group out there that represents cities besides the League of California Cities?  Let me attempt to answer.

Jon, although there are no other statewide groups that represent cities of which I am aware, there are a number of groups across the state that do in fact represent individual cities.

They are called city councils.

However, all too often these bodies and/or their individual members seem to march lockstep, herd mentality, with the consistent pro-tax philosophy of the "League."

All the more ironic, in that the League itself really doesn’t represent any taxpayers, at least not directly, while the city councilmembers most certainly do.

The reason I mention such heresy, is that I know there are dozens and perhaps hundreds of locally-elected city officials from throughout California that do in fact understand and realize the duplicity of a statewide association that admittedly does a pretty decent job in protecting cities from state raids, while seemingly also advocating for larger state government, as well as what follows — needed state government revenues.

Also, far more often than not, those mayors and councilmembers who choose to be involved in the leadership activities of the League of CA Cities — flying off to subcommittee meetings on workdays and conferences on weekends — are geared toward the game of government more so than the goal of smaller government.

Why not a smaller and less onerous state, that doesn’t need to rely on Prop 1A broken promises and other takeaways from local government, so cities, counties and districts really could be free to map their own destinies, while generating and keeping their revenues at home?  What if?

As Steve Martin used to say on SNL…."Nahhhhh!"

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.