California local government, be it county, city, water district, mosquito control district or library service district, is an abundant species of government. Also a bit hard to understand. If you are willing to stay up late one or two nights a week to attend hearings, have time to drop by a supervisor's office or call a board member, read every mailing or track informative web pages maybe you can stay up with local government activity in your neighborhood.
To help you along, the Institute of Local Government in Sacramento has written a nice 52 page primer, aptly titled Local Government Decision Making.
One of the curious things I learned in this guide was that there are over 7000 government entities in California, and we elect some 15,000 people to represent us in these local governments. Most trivia nuts can tell you there are 58 counties in California, and a web search will turn up some 480 cities, so that leaves about 6500 small service districts and some huge organizations. You want huge? how about the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with close to 9000 employees and five elected commissioners. Want small to middle size? How about the Carmichael Water District, with five directors. You want obscure? How about the San Diego LAFCO? At last count, no laughing matter, 13 representatives.
With such numbers, a guide can only be general, an outline, a starting point. But hey, you have to start somewhere, and this guide is a good place to start. So before you stay up past midnight at a city council meeting, waiting for that one discussion item about the garbage truck pickup fees, get to know this little book.
Local government decision making 101 for dummies and biblio-rats.
Bibliorati says-- for California local government watchdogs-- here is your remedial class.
