How well is the city where you live, work or study being run by local government and civic leaders?
Our Question of the Week for readers is written in anticipation of elections in many Southern California cities on March 7.
But it applies to people anyplace where City Hall is proving to be especially effective or ineffective at setting and enforcing laws, protecting public safety and safeguarding the quality of life.
What message do you try to send — or wish you had a chance to send — to City Hall when you vote in elections?
Are you pleased with the job local leaders are doing? Are there lessons other cities could learn from them?
Are you displeased? Do you have changes to suggest?
Fiscal issues are always critical to the management of local governments. Are residents of the Orange County cities and school districts that passed tax increases and school bonds in November confident that the revenue was necessary and will be well spent?
Are those in Anaheim and Newport Beach happy or concerned with the passage of measures in November to increase the threshold for raising taxes (to 2/3 in Anaheim and 5/7 in Newport Beach)? For those in other cities, would you like to see your government adopt a similar measure?
Development seems to almost always be a hot-button issue in Orange County. Do you approve of your city’s attitude toward development? How should cities balance property rights and community interests with regard to development?
Marijuana has been another controversial topic. Many local governments have struggled to develop regulations regarding medical marijuana, and now state voters have legalized recreational marijuana use, with the passage of Proposition 64 in November. How should your city deal with these dispensaries and businesses?
How well is your city dealing with these and other challenges?
Email your thoughts to letters@ocregister.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number. Or, if you prefer, share your views in the comments section that accompanies this article online.
We’ll publish as many responses as possible.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
