A Case Study: Los Angeles County

Information gathered from lacounty.info

Los Angeles County, one of California's original 27 counties, was established Feb. 18, 1850. Originally the County occupied a comparatively small area along the coast between Santa Barbara and San Diego, but within a year its boundaries were enlarged from 4,340 square miles to 34,520 square miles, an area sprawling east to the Colorado River.

During subsequent years, Los Angeles County slowly ebbed to its present size, the last major detachment occurring in 1889 with the creation of Orange County. Los Angeles County remains one of the nation's largest counties with 4,084 square miles, an area some 800 square miles larger than the combined area of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island.

Los Angeles County includes the islands of San Clemente and Santa Catalina. It is bordered on the east by Orange and San Bernardino Counties, on the north by Kern County, on the west by Ventura County, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. Its coastline is 75 miles long.

It has the largest population (10,245,572 as of January 2006) of any county in the nation, and is exceeded by only eight states. Approximately 28 percent of California's residents live in Los Angeles County.

The Board of Supervisors, created by the state Legislature in 1852, is the governing body. Five supervisors are elected to four-year terms by voters within their respective districts. The Board has executive, legislative and quasi-judicial roles. It appoints all department heads other than the assessor, district attorney and sheriff, which are elective positions.

As a subdivision of the state, the County is charged with providing numerous services that affect the lives of all residents. Traditional mandatory services include law enforcement, property assessment, tax collection, public health protection, public social services and relief to indigents. Among the specialized services are flood control, water conservation, parks and recreation, and many diversified cultural activities.

There are 88 cities within the County, each with its own city council. All of the cities, in varying degrees, contract with the County to provide municipal services. Thirty-seven contract for nearly all of their municipal services.

More than 65 percent of the County is unincorporated. For the 1 million people living in those areas, the Board of Supervisors is their "city council" and County departments provide the municipal services. The 2006-07 Final Budget is approximately $21 billion. Twenty-four percent of the revenue comes from the state, 22% from the federal government, 20% from property taxes, and 34 % from other sources. The largest percentage - 25% - of the budget goes to pay for social services, while 27% is spent on health services and 25% on public protection.

The County, with 100,632.6 budgeted employees, is the largest employer in the five-county region. Of these, 30,359.5 of the positions are in law and justice; 29,470.5 are in health services; and 21,685.5 are in social services. The spectrum of job listings - from clerk to truck driver, sanitarian to psychiatrist, scientist to scuba diver, attorney to helicopter pilot - encompasses nearly every trade and profession, and illustrates the complexity of county government.

This is a perfect model of how a metropolitan area can have cities, parishes, independent "fiefdoms" as they are called, and still allow the people of the region to particpate in the metropolitan government.

We all need a voice in what goes on in Greater New Orleans.

Let me ask you this, when you are out of town and you tell somebody where you are from, do you say LaPlace, Metairie, Chalmette, Mandeville, Slidell or any of the suburban cities around New Orleans? No. Generally you would say that you are from New Orleans or if you do say your city you follow up with something like "Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans". The fact is that New Orleans is our anchor, our base and if she goes down, so do you.