RNL's "Contract to Provide Local Justice"

RLN’s Publisher James Preston Allen is complaining about the closure of ten area courthouses. Frankly, this state could do without the excessive litigation. Still, his outrage is legitimate, since the Leaders of Los Angeles “promised” a courthouse, along with police, fire, and water. Nevertheless, I divine that the departed spirits of “anti-consolidation” San Pedro residents are now howling: “Told ya so!”

Los Angeles then and now has not kept its promises to Harbor area residents, but “business as usual” corruption which dominated the vote and the 1909 “consolidation” of San Pedro and Wilmington still lingers to this day. The City of (Fallen?) Angeles is having a hard time keeping other promises, too, like funding and furnishing pensions and benefits for the public workers and a balanced budget based on sound fiscal policies for everyone else. Entitlements and spending have reached unsustainable levels, yet even former Mayor Richard Riordian could not press his fellow Angelenos to adopt his plan so to grant their city a ghost of a chance of recovering.

On a related note, the very interest that RNL proudly paraded on its front covers, the “historic labor struggle”, is another major reason for the massive closures all over the state. Unions intimidate legislators, like the felonious state senator Roderick Wright, to spend money we do not have to protect collective bargaining units who misrepresent our public workers, deplete our state, coffers, and even put our students in danger. Of course, “anti-consolidation”souls resisted joining Los Angeles also because of the “inferior LA schools.”

I commend Mr. Allen’s proposed reforms to get the state back on track. “Three Strikes” has already been amended. Decriminalization of controlled substances would be a welcome improvement, which would all but guarantee a reduction of crime and criminal cases in our county jails. Decentralizing the court system would be great, too.

Surprisingly enough, Mr. Allen appears to have “seen the light” about damaging progressive polices and is advocating the proposed reforms of free-market economists. There is hope for the Harbor Area, after all! All the hallowed souls of San Pedro, dead and alive, shout: “Amen!”