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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:48 pm 
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The Dancing Cat
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2 ... -offs.html

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The city of Maywood will lay off all city employees and begin contracting police services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department effective July 1, officials said.

In addition to contracting with the Sheriff's Department, the Maywood City Council voted unanimously Monday night to lay off an estimated 100 employees and contract with neighboring Bell, which will handle other city services such as finance, records management, parks and recreation, street maintenance and others. Maywood will be billed about $50,833 monthly, which officials said will save $164,375 annually.

"We will become 100% a contracted city," said Angela Spaccia, Maywood's interim city manager.

Deputies from the East Los Angeles Sheriff's Station will begin patrolling the 1.2-square-mile city by the end of the month, said Capt. Bruce Fogarty of the Sheriff's Contract Law Enforcement Bureau. The annual cost of providing those services for the small city is estimated at $3.6 million, Fogarty said.

At a council meeting Monday night, city leaders said they were forced to dismantle the Police Department and lay off city workers because they lost insurance coverage as a result of excessive police claims filed against the department. They also blamed years of financial abuse and corruption from the previous council.

"We're limited on our choices and limited on what we can do," Councilman Felipe Aguirre told the standing- room-only crowd.

Frustrated and enraged residents blame the council for the city's predicament, and for not following an insurance agency's recommendations, which council members had agreed to last August. The recommendations included hiring a permanent city manager.

Some suggested that city leaders should step down.

"You guys had the power to change it and you didn't," said City Treasurer Lizeth Sandoval, 28, who addressed the council as a resident. "You single-handedly destroyed the city."

Sandoval, a city employee, will be laid off as part of the cuts.

Local activists, who refer to themselves as "A Group for a Better Maywood," announced their intention to recall four of the council members: Felipe Aguirre, Edward Varela, Vice Mayor Veronica Guardado and Mayor Ana Rosa Rizo. The same group sought a similar recall in 2008 and failed.


I am very curious to see how this experiment plays out.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:52 pm 
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It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:53 pm 
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Rynar wrote:
It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.

According to the article they'll save about 165k/yr. Very curious to watch this unfold and see if it is adopted elsewhere.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:55 pm 
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Substituting 1 government for 1.25 governments is not more efficient or responsive.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:56 pm 
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Ladas wrote:
Substituting 1 government for 1.25 governments is not more efficient or responsive.


Maybe I'm misreading the OP, but I think your math is fuzzy.

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19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Ezekiel 23:19-20 


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:15 pm 
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How can a broke city hire a permanent city manager?

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:24 pm 
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Heh. So, by paying 51k a month, and saving 165k a year, I figure they were spending $774,371 on these ~100 employees.

And now, they're saving over 21% on providing those services. I'd say that's a pretty good deal -- I don't see how they've destroyed anything.

Heck, I bet the LA police and Bell city government are now hiring, too, if you just got laid off...

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:53 pm 
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It's not going to be any more efficient. It's still government. They can't "fire" LA police, because there's no jurisdiction next to them to compete. The only "competition" would be reestablishing their own department.

Don't get me wrong, it very well may be better than what they have now, but it's not going to be open market.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 3:56 pm 
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Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Don't get me wrong, it very well may be better than what they have now, but it's not going to be open market.


Until somebody invents LoneStar.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 4:17 pm 
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Rynar wrote:
Ladas wrote:
Substituting 1 government for 1.25 governments is not more efficient or responsive.


Maybe I'm misreading the OP, but I think your math is fuzzy.

They aren't un-incorporating their city, so presumably they merely outsourced most of their services but the local city is going to keep the administrative functions, such as collecting the taxes that are going to be used to pay these other entities to provide the services, leaving the citizens to either have to contact their local authority who administers the contracts with the other organizations, or have to deal with other organizations regarding services for which they have no say, as they aren't constituents of the political framework that oversees those entities.

Neither one of which is either more efficient nor more responsive, since you have either turned your own "government" into a shim between you and the real service provider, or merely traded one government service provider for another, while keeping the overhead of your previous government.

The only way this would be more efficient is if they had "disbanded" the city and agreed to be annex'd into one of the neighboring municipalities.

Yay for getting county level services while paying city level taxes.


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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 4:56 pm 
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Just so you know, the arrangement is fairly common out here. There are a lot of tiny, incorporated cities that have contracts with the LA Sheriff's department. I think what's striking in this case is that they're laying off folks to do it, rather than having that arrangement from the get-go. Not sure if other cities that use the Sheriffs did it this way, but I assume they must have bitten the bullet and laid people off at some point. Or, maybe they never had a police force in the first place, or contracted with LA Police, instead?

Yes, it's a weird patchwork of municipalities out here. Look up Industry, CA some time.

Edit: God, I love Wikipedia. Turns out that these are called "Contract Cities. Lakewood, CA (next to Long Beach) was the first one to do it, back in 1954.

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2010 5:30 pm 
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Rynar wrote:
It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.


Efficient and affordable yes. Responsive, no.

DFK! wrote:
Until somebody invents LoneStar.


That would be **** awesome, but only if I can have Wired Reflexes and a Smartgun Wire.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 9:56 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Rynar wrote:
It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.


Efficient and affordable yes. Responsive, no.

DFK! wrote:
Until somebody invents LoneStar.


That would be **** awesome, but only if I can have Wired Reflexes and a Smartgun Wire.


I just wanna be the guy who patents the idea and gets the first contract. Cash.Cow.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 10:19 am 
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I don't think you can patent a business model..

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 11:15 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Rynar wrote:
It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.


Efficient and affordable yes. Responsive, no.

DFK! wrote:
Until somebody invents LoneStar.


That would be **** awesome, but only if I can have Wired Reflexes and a Smartgun Wire.

Wired reflexes are awful, you'd want synaptic boosters instead...


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 1:01 pm 
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Timmit wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Rynar wrote:
It should result in more efficient, affordable, and responsive government.


Efficient and affordable yes. Responsive, no.

DFK! wrote:
Until somebody invents LoneStar.


That would be **** awesome, but only if I can have Wired Reflexes and a Smartgun Wire.

Wired reflexes are awful, you'd want synaptic boosters instead...


Yeah you could get those and the superconducting spinal replacement (forget what it's called) and spread the essence burden around.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 1:19 pm 
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Kaffis Mark V wrote:
I don't think you can patent a business model..


If you can get digital license plates in CA and Lonestar-style contracting in CA, you can get anything else from SR as well.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:21 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Yeah you could get those and the superconducting spinal replacement (forget what it's called) and spread the essence burden around.
Also, if you spread the essence cost around between cyberware and bioware, the one that has the lesser essence total cost is halved ;)

Besides, Synaptic Boosters cost much less essence, irrc...


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 10:46 am 
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Timmit wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Yeah you could get those and the superconducting spinal replacement (forget what it's called) and spread the essence burden around.
Also, if you spread the essence cost around between cyberware and bioware, the one that has the lesser essence total cost is halved ;)

Besides, Synaptic Boosters cost much less essence, irrc...


I think Bioware is actually based on Body, not Essence, but that still achieves the same end.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 11:08 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
I think Bioware is actually based on Body, not Essence, but that still achieves the same end.

They've changed that in 4th Edition. It's all essence now, no more body index.

Also, they changed initiative passes (either in 3rd or 4th edition) so that extra IPs are less useful now. If character A has 1 pass and character B has 3 passes the turn will go B A B B instead of B B B A like it used to be (assuming B has higher initiative, which is pretty likely).


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 1:25 pm 
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and here... This would be better than the shadowrun version of stuff....

The New West

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 1:49 pm 
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Timmit wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
I think Bioware is actually based on Body, not Essence, but that still achieves the same end.

They've changed that in 4th Edition. It's all essence now, no more body index.

Also, they changed initiative passes (either in 3rd or 4th edition) so that extra IPs are less useful now. If character A has 1 pass and character B has 3 passes the turn will go B A B B instead of B B B A like it used to be (assuming B has higher initiative, which is pretty likely).


Yea, 4th is much better.

Also, we may be seeing a new edition, depending on the outcome of the Catalyst lawsuit.

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:51 pm 
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dorks

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 2:55 pm 
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Screeling wrote:
dorks

^

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 3:44 pm 
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Screeling wrote:
dorks


YOU ARE.

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